Amoli Vani

One place you definitely want to be during holidays is New York. It's undoubtedly the most wonderful time of the year! Each and every street you walk by will be showering you with Christmas and holiday vibes. This year I decided to make the most of my time and visit all the spectacular places in New York. I spent an entire week, specially to enjoy this Holiday season in New York style. Here are some of the most beautiful places, most of which won't even cost you a penny, you should definitely consider visiting! Dyker Heights Christmas Lights Location :  Dyker Heights, Brooklyn This neighborhood in Brooklyn is literally LIT with the most luminous lights and decorations! The owners decorate their beautiful houses during the weekend post Thanksgiving. The best display of lights and decorations can be witnessed between 11th Avenue to 13th Avenue from 83rd to 86th street in Dyker Heights. People crowd these streets to see the most spectacular decorations wit

Oh yes, finally I am writing about this! I took this trip in Summer during my birthday weekend but I guess it's never too late😜.  Greenfield State Park is tucked away in this 400-acre park in the southwest corner of the Granite State and features ponds, bogs, and a forest that extends to the shore of undeveloped Otter Lake.  Here is the link for making reservations  https://www.nhstateparks.org/visit/state-parks/greenfield-state-park .  Location :   Greenfield State Park, New Hampshire If you are planning a two day weekend, it is best to reach the Park in the morning itself of the first day. Greenfield is around 2-2.5 hours drive from Boston. We purchased the tent from Walmart and it had pretty clear instructions for setting up the tent. It is definitely going to take some intense efforts! Another option is booking a cabin, if you want to avoid setting up the tent. There are a total of 252 camping sites available in the Greenfield State park. There are a good

Yesss finally this happened!! I had been waiting for this for a long time now and finally FlyNYON made it possible! Flying over the Manhattan Skyscrapers at 1500 feet above was like Dream-come-true!! Website : FlyNYON FlyNYON offers both doors-on and doors-off flights. Doors-off is one hell-of-a-ride, once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience. The view of NYC and Statue of Liberty at sunset is just breathtaking! The doors-on flights have two durations: 12-15 mins and 24-27 mins and the doors-off flights have 16-19 mins and 30-33 mins flights. The prices differ depending on the duration and on basis of doors-off or doors-on flight. They have special sunset timings too and it's just for a little extra bucks. The view covered is different for different duration times too. The 12-15 mins doors-on flight offers the view of the Downtown, Statue of Liberty, Jersey City and the Governor's Island. The 24-27 mins flight offers the complete view covers the entire NYC includin

Spring is here and so is the Lilac festival of Rochester that takes place in Rochester's Highland Park. Rochester's Lilac Festival is an annual festival of art, music, food and florals that is hosted around early May. Every year this festival attracts nearly 5,00,000 people from across the world to witness around 500 varieties of lilacs and enjoy various events, concerts and activities. This year they are celebrating it's 120th year and it has a ten-days fun and entertainment lined up for people of all age! Oh wait, did I mention that the entry to the festival is totally free?! Rochester's Lilac Festival dates back to 1898 and the Highland Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed New York's Central Park!😯 Dates : May 11th - May 20th, 2018 Location :  Highland Park, 180 Reservoir Ave, Rochester, NY 14620 The celebration of this festival was kick-started with the Lilac parade that began at South Avenue of Science Parkway and trave

If you have been to NYC, you might have definitely seen the NYC Skyline. But this time I decided to see the Skyline from the other side. To sail through the Hudson River and rediscover the city! I came across this cruise while checking out the Fever App. I must say if you're living in major cities like New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles etc. and are looking for places to explore your city, I would totally recommend this app.  Normally the HornBlower Cruises are around $35, but on Fever you will get such cruise packages for around $15-$19 for 2-3 hours. The 'Alive after five' cruise that I took was for $15 (there's a tip in this article - read for it!), for 3 hours duration and covered Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and of course the NYC skyline. There are many such cruises available on Fever with different packages and timings like 'Rock the Yacht', 'Lady of Liberty cruise' and many more. Alive after Five - HornBlower

Ever since I have started living in New York, apart from the Times Square, I had always been fascinated by the beautiful graffiti walls and murals. New York is a very big city and so this holiday weekend I decided to cover one stretch of area. As the lazy-bum I am, I didn't want to keep hopping from one subway station to another looking for these murals (wanted to save metro swipes too :p). So here's how I planned it. I did some research and decided to visit an area where I would get as many as possible murals at 5 mins walk distance. So I decided to head to the Prince Street and Mott Street as they have a lot of murals at almost every street corners. One can reach there via the D or F train and get down at Broadway-Lafayette Street or via the J train and get down at Bowery Station.  So here are the 4 murals that I liked the most and that serve as the perfect backgrounds for clicking pictures. I checked these and many other murals out in my short 1 hour visit. All of