Is New York City a red flag?

If you have been on TikTok recently, you may have seen a trend called the ‘Anti-Travel Bucket List.’ This trend focuses on things people do not recommend doing on their travels. This could include not traveling to a certain destination or not doing certain activities. Throughout my travels, I have developed a similar anti-travel bucket list with places I would not recommend going to. On mine is New York City. I am sure this may seem like a hot take, but hopefully, in this article, I will be able to convince you why NYC is on my list.

When I went to New York, I went in February. It was really cold with the temperature in the minus degrees almost every day. This wasn’t a major issue, as I prefer the cold over the heat when I am exploring a new place. An immediate red flag though was the sheer amount of people in the city. One of the first things that I did when I arrived was take an iconic photo at Times Square, and I was just gob-smacked at the thousands of people there. I did a quick Google and realised that over 300,000 people pass through every day. On holiday, I much prefer exploring a location at my own pace, but the rush of Times Square made this almost impossible!

On holiday, I much prefer exploring a location at my own pace, but the rush of Times Square made this almost impossible!

Of course, if you do go to New York, it’s great to see all the architecture, like the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 memorial site. These are must-sees. But even with these, another red flag pops up. To travel to the Statue of Liberty you need to splash out over $25 on the ferry, and to go up the Empire State observation deck, $44 is needed. This makes New York almost impossible to do on a budget if you want to see all the sites. If it weren’t for my A-Level economics teacher telling me about some travel hacks in New York, such as taking the free ferry to Staten Island which passes right by the Statue of Liberty, so you still get that picture for Instagram without having to pay that ferry price, I’d have struggled to afford my trip to NYC!

As well as this, the sheer amount of scaffolding in NYC is mind-blowing. Right now, there are over 8,400 scaffolding structures across NYC. This meant that when I went, it was really difficult to get any pics without any scaffolding in them. This really annoyed me as all the scaffolding ruined the vibe that I was looking to get out of in NYC. Dodging scaffolding poles when walking on the sidewalks, getting cold water dripping on you from the structures when the ice from the night before began to melt, this was all just a massive turn-off for me.

When going to NYC, you need to factor in the tips as they will be a lot more than back at home

Another negative about NYC was the food and shopping. For my first time traveling to the city, some of the cultural differences around taxes and the tipping culture surprised me. In NYC, there is an 8.875% sales tax on most goods and services, but the price tags did not include this. This meant that if you did not know this, you will be picking up lots of stuff to buy thinking everything is relatively cheap, but when you go to the till and see the sales tax being added on, you will be in for a shock. Personally, for me, I feel it’s a bit scummy that you are not told the full price of what you are buying until you are at the checkout, and it certainly was a cultural shock for me.

Don’t get me wrong, the food is delicious and if you are a fast food junky, then NYC is the perfect place for you. However, I was shocked by the tipping culture. At home, in the UK, I do tip my server at restaurants, but not to the extent that I was tipping in NYC. In some restaurants there was a 20% service charge. Our bill was usually around $100 at restaurants for the three of us that went, but that meant we were tipping $20 in restaurants even if the service wasn’t that good. So again, when going to NYC, you need to factor in the tips as they will be a lot more than back at home…and the price tags are misleading to say the least.

This may be just a personal thing, but on holiday, I would rather not be thinking about my safety 24/7.

A final negative to NYC is the sheer amount of suspicious activity I saw. Typically, in the day, NYC is fine, but as soon as nighttime comes around, you’ll see a completely different side to the city. During my time there, I saw many people using illegal substances and being aggressive for no reason whatsoever. There were also lots of people who were clearly showing symptoms of substance abuse such as talking and shouting to themselves in the street and just looking gone-out. This isn’t a surprise if you look at the data that shows 2.8 million New Yorkers had an SUD (substance use disorder) in the past year. This made my walks at night quite nervy, and I was constantly on alert in case someone may take offence to me for no reason. This wasn’t even happening late at night; for example, I went out to get a pizza slice at maybe 8pm and even then, I was on alert. This may be just a personal thing, but on holiday, I would rather not be thinking about my safety 24/7.

Another thing that I saw on my holiday which was actually rather sad was lots of poverty. The city had over 350,000 homeless in 2024 and when you are exploring the city, you can see many people sleeping in doorways in sleeping bags and lots of people begging for money. This was just horrible to see, especially when I was on holiday and had spent money on flight and hotels. I did give leftover food to some of the homeless, but it is impossible to help everybody, and I felt bad that I was on holiday and having a good time when other people were struggling to survive. One of the saddest things I witnessed in NYC was on the subway where I saw a women carrying her child who must have been just a few months old trying to sell chocolates to tube passengers to make some money to get by, and nobody was buying anything from her. This made my holiday somewhat more depressing seeing events like this, and I was so heartbroken to see scenes like that.

I felt like the whole culture and atmosphere of NYC just wasn’t my thing.

I hope this has justified why NYC is on my anti-travel bucket list. Of course, these are all just my opinions, but I felt like the whole culture and atmosphere of NYC just wasn’t my thing. I did enjoy some aspects of NYC like the food and seeing some iconic sites, but I feel like I had lots of negative opinions about the city, and now that I have been there once, I may not go again.

The anti-bucket list is so beneficial as now I know where I would not like to visit again and what activities I don’t want to do. Perhaps, this example of what is on my anti-travel bucket list is your sign to create your own one and write down all your red flags when travelling so you never forget what you didn’t like.