In New York City, there’s the A to B kind – those fixated on the destination, forgetting to experience the journey. Your ‘where to’ on Uber, walking 10 blocks with a 2 block detour for the good coffee, or taking a sweaty subway ride to Rockaway on the weekend for the sweet relief of salt water on a 90 degree day. These people are still waiting to find the magic of the places you go that exist only as fantasy.

New York City has been romanticised by lyrics, cinema and poetry that re-posts and captions will keep alive for all of social media’s eternity, even if the attributed are perpetually rolling over in their graves with every double tap of Instagram’s beating heart. 

But then what happens when the drop-pin and this conjured dream-state collide?

Suddenly it is not a thought experiment… or the scenes you see in movies. The mystery is a reality – you’ve arrived – and you’re thrust into a yellow cab, weaving through the concrete dream manufacturer, with an energy you’re not sure is vibrating from the underground and reverberating through your soul, or vice versa. But this is the low-hanging fruit. Arriving is just arriving. 
The real New York is your passport to the place you fear the most… Your very core. 

Acknowledge the un-comfortability of feeling small in the city’s enormity, context, pace, and the experiences that will startle you. Thrust yourself under the microscope examining and dissecting – the naked eye misses so much – without the city forcing introspection. And if this is your right of passage, and you make the round trip, you’ll know exactly what it tastes like to bite the big juicy apple.
 
This is when you know – you’re really going places. – CB