New York City Driving from Southern California to New York City with Five Kids in a Mini-Van was a Real Adventure. Some Say it was downright Foolish, in the End, the Skeptics were Silenced.

New York, New York

The idea of driving from our home in Southern California to New York City seemed to be a bit whimsical to some, but after visiting New York many years earlier, I was convinced that I could make a good family vacation out of it.

There were other stops along the way, like Las Vegas, The Saint Louis Arch, and Washington DC, but we didn't spend more than a day or so in each place so we proceeded across the Country at a good pace.

My wife and I committed to drive at least 500 miles each day, and guess what, we made it. It helped that we had a DVD player for the Kids, they watched movies and played games during the trip. Sure there was some TENSION, among the kids, among the parents, stuck in a van that long, something's bound to break and it DID, more than once, but we pressed forward.

Tension on the drive to NYC, Boy 1 (smiling) succeeds in bothering Boy 2 (in back frowning), as sister looks on. All were chastised and sentenced to 2 hours without a DVD.

Three Goals

We had three main goals when we arrived in New York;

Goal #1: Visit The Statue of Liberty
Goal #2 Visit The Empire State Building
Goal #3 Visit Times Square (AT NIGHT!)

I know, there's so much more to New York City, but with only three weeks of Vacation a year, I had to take care of the "Major Attractions" when we were in New York. I had heard a bunch of bad things about Parking in New York City so we decided to stay in Weehawken, New Jersey at the Sheraton Hotel on the Hudson River. Usually, were a Camping Family, so the Sheraton was a Luxury Hotel for us. The price wasn't too bad, about $130 a night, of course I didn't tell them that we were a family of 7, during the Internet registration I said we were 2 adults with 1 child under 12. Just like all of the other hotels I have done this with, once you arrive on the scene, the hotel Staff doesn't really care. What I did in this case was bring 2 kids in with me during registration, and I had the wife and the rest of the kids come up about a half-hour later, as visitors. A hotel like that is usually too busy to be checking on every party that stays there, so it's not a problem, really!

The Weehawken Sheraton, a nice place to stay.

You can see in the picture above that New York City is right across the Hudson River, so it wasn't too difficult getting around. We walked from the Weehawken Sheraton to the over ground light rail that took us to Hoboken station in New Jersey. From There We took the Subway from Hoboken to New York City, it was a easy transition.

Part of our Motley Crew headed for Hoboken Station from Weehawken on the Light Rail.

Inside Hoboken Terminal, (The Kids Still at each other)

After we arrived in Hoboken Terminal, it was a easy ride to New York City, we didn't really know where to get off, but we knew we wanted to go to Times Square, at this point it was getting to be nightfall, but we continued on and finally ended up in our first destination, Times Square.

If your interested in reading about our visit to Times Square CLICK HERE.