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I just got back from a week in New York City on a girls trip with random strangers turned friends I met on Instagram. NYC is one of the few places that can simultaneously exhaust , exhilarate and motivate me. The food. The noise. The crowds. The shopping. The food. No one cares what you are wearing or doing – just get out of their way.
I hate fall – the end of September and beginning of September are hard for me as my body tenses up the moment it smells a decaying leaf. But if I know one thing, it’s that Meg Ryan thrives in a NYC fall. I have watched “You’ve Got Mail” and “When Harry Met Sally” too many times to let my seasonal anxiety/depression get in the way of experiencing New York City in October.
I love our group of friends – Courtney Grow, Sarah AKA Things I Bought and Liked, Mallory Goldman, and Vanessa AKA Goals to Get Glowing. Everyone always asks how we became friends, and I think it is just like any other job – you need peers and work besties that understand what you are going through for a majority of your week. It is harder to have that in a non-traditional job where you work for yourself. It was one of the reasons I stayed so long at my previous corporate job.
I think are common thread is that we are all funny. Like really funny. But we make each other laugh and that is needed when you are receiving mean messages from people who only know you from what you post on IG. Courtney and I started around the same time and just bonded. I always messaged with Vanessa, Mallory and Sarah and soon enough we just had a group text going. There are no good ways to learn how to do this job, so we usually just shared tips, tricks and gut checks.
We knew we liked each other and wanted to try out a meet up. Our first was in Del Mar, California and then we went to Cabo this past January. This was our third girls trip and we decided on New York City because of the shopping, weather, and food. It did not disappoint – the weather was PERFECT when we went. Like mid 70s and sunny every day.
We stayed at Nine Orchard in the Lower East Side. Eli with Wagner Travel helped us reserve the rooms. Eli helped us with our first New York City trip last December. When we decided to go to NYC as a group, I asked Eli for her help in organizing rooms for all six of us at Nine Orchard. Even though there was a lot going on at the hotel last week, she went above and beyond in helping us compare which rooms would be best for us, booking the rooms and then getting us the extra perks – like room upgrades (based on availability), free breakfast, late and early checkout and a welcome gift – wine for us!
They are not paying me to write this recommendation, I just never realized how nice it was to have a personal travel agent. When we thought my uncle was not going to make it through his surgery this past July, I texted Eli and asked how we could get his daughter (my cousin) from the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska to Cape Coral, Florida as soon as possible. It was so nice to have Eli use her team to figure out the best and fastest flight. I can never repay her for that – my whole entire family was grateful for her service.
Nine Orchard is a boutique hotel located in the Lower East Side- perfect for a New York City girls trip. We first stayed there last May and fell in love with the hotel. The staff is incredible.The rooms are large and there is so much natural light. The beds are divine. I think my favorite part is the turndown service – you get two bottles of water and a cookie every night. And there is a mini bar and snacks you can buy, but you do not get charged just for opening the refrigerator, so you can use the fridge to store cream cheese for the bagels you ordered in the morning, knowing you would want after a night of drinking.
Missy and I stayed in a Corner King, which you can see half of the room below. Behind me is the bathroom, which contains a large natural-light shower, also below. I am obsessed with that shower.
While the chaos of NYC makes me (Sarah) a little anxious, I do it all for the food. Especially the bagels. Sigh. The bagels. So good. One of the reasons why I love our girls trips is because we never order a meal for ourselves, this is especially important in New York City. We just order different entrees and appetizers and do a family style meal. It is the best way to eat in New York City because you can try a lot more things without wasting much food.
We had a few dinners planned with our affiliate partners, and we often separated for lunches and I bought a lot of my own DoorDash. This was my first time in New York City on Mounjaro, and it was definitely different than my last trip. I got full very easily and had to make sure I was eating frequent, small meals. However, I still feel like I got to enjoy all of the great food without getting too sick, with the exception of the one morning I took an edible and it did not take effect until like 6 hours later and made me feel sick. Edibles are HARD to manage when you are on Ozempic or Mounjaro. Remember that.
We got in around 3 pm. As soon as we were in the uber headed to the hotel, I ordered 7th Street Burger. Their burgers are SO good. And they can Doordash. I ended up getting a double cheeseburger this time, and prefer the single cheeseburger with extra onions and house sauce on the side. The slight sweetness of the bun and grilled onions with the creaminess of the American cheese mixed with the sour of the pickles and house sauce. It is a delight.
We had a dinner with Howl and then went to Stevie Nicks concert. We had dinner at El Quijote in Hotel Chelsea and I loved it. The tomato bread, the sour olives and the chicken kabobs were my favorite part. But especially that tomato bread. I thought it was better than the bread at Carbone…
After the Stevie concert at Madison Square Garden, we ended up getting pizza somewhere in Times Square. I randomly ordered Hawaiian pizza because I was afraid of getting heartburn from my usual pepperoni. We ordered 6 slices and then ate them over a garbage can. So New York.
You can’t do a girls trip in New York City without bagels. I always order Ess-A-Bagel from DoorDash in the morning – even if we are getting breakfast somewhere else. Their bagels are so good – like even the plain bagel is good. I think that Thompson Square has better cream cheese, but overall the bagels at Ess-A-Bagels edge TS out for me for best bagels. Now – I do not usually care about bagel sandwiches, so this is based purely off of bagels and cream cheese. I love their strawberry cream cheese and plain bagel, their everything bagel and scallion cream cheese and the sesame bagel with olive cream cheese. I just store the cream cheese in the fridge and then eat throughout the day when I need a snack.
When you stay at Nine Orchard, there is a small restuarant downstairs, The Corner Bar, where you can get a credit for breakfast. The green juice is the best. I also like the chia pudding and the yogurt parfait, which is a little sour, but craveable. I love their coffee and it is so nice to just sit down there and chat about the night before with everyone.
We had a later breakfast, but then met up with Jess from An Indigo Day to talk shop. She is the owner of The Blog Societies and knows a lot about SEO and blogging. We met in the Corner Bar and talked, but really did not eat much. Then we went to midtown? to go to Bergdorf Goodman.
On the way home from Bergdorf and shopping in Soho, we stopped by Thai Diner, to get some thai iced teas. Thai Diner was a stop on our last trip when we met up with Katelyn Sailor and it IS SO GOOD. It should be a must visit on your NYC agenda.
This was the day I felt weird because my edible hit way later than it was supposed to, so I missed out on dinner at 4 Charles Prime Rib. Whew. It is hard to get a reservation there. Courtney ended up having a connection, but I also would log into Resy at 9 am EST three weeks before the date (thats when they open up spots) and all the good dinner times were already taken. I ended up getting a 9:30 PM reservation and cancelled it. However, I now think that late dinner reservations are the way to go in NYC – plenty of time to shop and nap before dinner. Missy said the sides at 4 Charles were phenomenal and she can see why it is the number 1 restaurant on Appointment Trader (where you can bid on restaurant reservations).
Missy and I wondered off to go shopping in the morning and stopped by this cute coffee shop where I had the best Pistachio Latte (order the Pistachio bomb) of my life. The only issue is I cannot remember the name for the life of me. We also got two waffles that were delicious.
Vanessa and I met up with Jordan Samuel at a diner and I also cannot remember the name of it. This was the day after my edible and I think I was still feeling the effects of it. It was really good, though and exactly the kind of food I wanted. I feel like after so long eating fancier food, I always crave diner food.
ShopMy, another affiliate platform, took us out to Carbone. I loved my French 75. So much, I got three of them. The cauliflower giardiniera was delicious. It comes out with a diverse bread basket of bread with tomatoes on it and some other pieces. Then they give you a hunk of parmasan cheese. I did not understand the hunk of parm. Maybe it is a higher class thing, but I would have rather them grated it a la Olive Garden. I am who I am. I thought the spicy rigatoni was really good, but the pacing of the meal was off. We waited like 45 minutes between spicy rigatoni and the chicken parm. If you are expecting a quiet place to talk amongst each other – you will not find that here. It was still so cool to try it and generous of ShopMy to take us out there.
We just had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then nibbled on snacks throughout the day. We did grab a slice of pizza at Scar’s Pizza. Highly recommend the pepperoni with jalapenos drizzled with Mike’s Hot Honey. We had dinner at Rosella, a sustainable sushi restaurant in the East Village. This was my favorite meal of the trip. The Miso soup was incredible. Courtney’s best friend’s boyfriend owns the restaurant and prepared a special menu for us and it was so good and fresh. Also, so unique. I will definitely be going back. And order the miso soup – trust me. It was the perfect ending to a New York City girls trip – a light and refreshing meal that will not be too heavy for the upcoming travel day.
Even though it was exhausting, I cannot recommend a girls trip to New York City more. It is especially convenient if you live in the Midwest or East Coast as most big cities have a direct flight. It is fun to figure out what you will be wearing and how to wear it while walking tens of thousands of steps. I have yet to visit NYC in the summer, but have visited during all of the other seasons and I think beginning of May and October have been my favorite so far.
Hope you get the time and resources to take the girls trip out of the group chat someday!