New to DC? Want to go to NYC? Here’s how.

January 15, 4:28 PMDC Ireland & UK Travel ExaminerLaura Harrison McBride

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Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, NYC (Freefoto.com)

Lots of new people will be moving to DC. While I admit the city is chock full of stuff to do, it’s also nice to see other nearby cities. Premier among them, one must think, would be the Big Apple. (Other day-trip/weekend getaway cities include Richmond, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington DE, Atlantic City and more.)

But NYC has been difficult and expensive to reach form DC…until now. Now, a new bus service that bills itself as better than airplanes were in the good old days, is living up to its name. My cousin, who doesn’t drive (why should he? He lives in DC where public transportation is pretty good), used the service last week and speaks glowingly. He is a tough customer for transport, simply because of how frequently he uses it.

Here’s what he said: 

“We took it last week, and it was $92 for both of us to go to NY and back. The seats were great, plus we were actually able to sit at a table, and it had a computer hook up. It was nice, like airplanes used to be.

“Not only that, but I had forgotten the tickets I had printed out at home. It wasn’t a problem. The person checking us in found my name and that’s all there was to it.”

My cousin forgot to get directions once to the hospital in Delaware treating his brother, figuring that we could just sort of find it. We did; we stopped in an auto parts store in Christiana and asked and the nice man actually led us to it.

I mention this just so you’ll know my cousin, despite being a public transportation person, has trouble with some aspects of travel.  Actually, many aspects of travel. His parents used to sometimes take two days to get from Brooklyn to eastern Long Island to visit us after we’d moved there. It’s about 45 miles.

Based on my cousin’s recommendation, I highly recommend dctony.com. You can check their website as easily as I can. But, if you’re new in DC, you probably don’t know how many light years better this is than most bus services to NYC. With most, you have to go and return the same day, and there’s one departure each way. With dctony, there are daily choices of several, and you can go any day, come back any day.

They have two nice stops in DC, one at Dupont Circle. They have two stops in NYC, one near Macy’s, the original one, scene of song, story and the terminal point of the Macy’s/NCY Thanksgiving Day Parade. (One year, in the early 80s probably, when Santa climbed out of his sleigh, he dropped his drawers and mooned the crowd. On TV. Ever since then, they don't let him climb down and walk into Macy's. It's true, I swear.  I was in NY at the time, watching it on TV from the comfort of my apartment, 20 blocks away, and warm.)

Here’s the best part: With most of the bus services I’ve taken from DC, once you’re booked and paid, that’s it. Use it or lose it. With dctony, you actually can reschedule as long as it’s at least 24 hours before your trip. Life happens, plans change. They accommodate.

If you were to rent a car and drive to NYC, it would cost hundreds, plus you’d be stuck with all the tolls and parking the darn car in NY, not a pretty thought. Even for those of us native to that city who’ve moved away.

You can make a day-trip out of the visit with dctony.com, so you could have your ‘mental health day’ fling for about $50 in actual travel costs, plus whatever you spent bumming around NYC for a day. Or you can use the loot you save on car rental, train fares or airline tickets on a fairly nice hotel. More on those later.