People normally do not put the words babymoon, Manhattan, 1-year-old, and 5-year-old in the same sentence unless they are either very optimistic or slightly unwell.
Apparently, we are going with optimistic.
From 27 May to 2 June, we are going to Manhattan for our honeymoon, except we are also bringing our two daughters, who are 1 and 5 years old, so technically this is probably better described as a babymoon in Manhattan.
And honestly, I love that.
Why Manhattan
The obvious question is why Manhattan for a honeymoon with two small children.
The answer is pretty simple. I love the city. I have been there several times and it still gets me. The pace, the energy, the feeling of just being in it, the fact that even a normal walk can feel like part of the experience.
My wife has never been. Neither have the girls.
So this trip is not really about “doing New York properly.” It is about showing them a city I already love and letting them meet it in a way that fits us.
That means walking a lot, taking it slow, letting the city do some of the work, and making room for things that matter more than efficiency, like playgrounds, snack stops, random detours, and the simple pleasure of not rushing.
The sketch image for this piece should be understood in exactly that spirit too. It is not a serious cartographic document. It is a warm illustrated travel board for the trip we want to have.
Also, if I am being completely honest, I really want to take them to Central Park.
The family version of a honeymoon
A honeymoon without children is one kind of romance.
A honeymoon with a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old is another.
It is less cold Pepsi Max on a balcony and more trying to appreciate the skyline while someone asks for snacks and someone else has extremely strong opinions about a situation that made perfect sense thirty seconds ago.
But that does not make it worse. Just different.
Maybe a bit less polished. Definitely louder. Probably less sleep. But still romantic in a more real way.
I like that version too.
The direct flight rule
If there is one travel opinion I do feel strongly about when children are involved, it is this:
If you can avoid transfers, avoid transfers.
We are flying direct with SAS from Copenhagen to Newark, and that alone makes the whole plan feel smarter.
Our kids have already been on many flights, including multiple trips to Asia and the US, so flying itself is not new territory for us. But that does not mean I have any interest in adding unnecessary airport acrobatics in the middle of a long-haul trip.
Transfers with kids always sound manageable in theory. In practice, they tend to become a strange endurance event where everyone is tired, nobody is impressed, and the adults pretend this was all part of the adventure.
No thanks.
Direct flights are not luxury. They are strategy.
Why Newark, not JFK
For this trip, EWR just makes more sense.
It seems less crowded, less chaotic, and quicker to get from the airport into Midtown. That matters when the goal is to arrive in New York and start enjoying life, not lose momentum in airport and transfer logistics.
That is also part of the wider trip logic here. We are not trying to optimize for some abstract travel score. We are optimizing for a good start.
Why we picked the Concorde Hotel
We are staying at the Concorde Hotel.
This was not one of those ultra-romantic, design-magazine booking decisions. It was more practical than that, which is exactly why I think it was the right one.
The logic was:
- good location
- budget-friendly if you want a bigger room
- bigger room matters a lot more once you are traveling with children
That last point gets underrated by people who are not traveling with a one-year-old and a five-year-old.
A hotel room stops being “just somewhere to sleep” once four people are sharing it, one child still operates partly on chaos, and another can be perfectly happy right up until the second she absolutely is not.
A bit more space is not indulgence. It is common sense.
The actual plan
The plan is to do Manhattan the way I think Manhattan is best enjoyed anyway.
Mostly on foot. In late spring. Without trying to win.
That means we are not trying to cram seven major attractions into each day. We will probably anchor each day around one proper area or one main thing, then let the rest happen more naturally.
That feels better for the kids, better for us, and honestly more true to the city.
The point is not to complete Manhattan like a task list.
The point is to be there.
What we want to see
There are obviously some places that belong on the list.
For the classic Manhattan feeling:
- Grand Central
- Fifth Avenue
- Rockefeller Center
- Chrysler Building
- Empire State Building
- probably a controlled dose of Times Square
For the family side of the trip:
- Central Park
- playgrounds
- FAO Schwarz
- long walks with snack stops and random moments that the girls decide are the most important part of the day
And for the proper New York landmark payoff:
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Wall Street
- One World
- the Oculus
- The MET
- Staten Island Ferry, mostly for the deck view of the Statue of Liberty without overcomplicating things
There are definitely more things we could add.
That is not the hard part.
The hard part is resisting the temptation to confuse possible with smart.
How we want it to feel
This is probably the most important part.
We do not want the trip to feel like a family logistics drill disguised as a city break.
We want it to feel like Manhattan.
We want to walk. Look around. Drift a bit. Let the city atmosphere carry some of the day. Grab a Monster Energy drink. Stop when the children want to stop. Sit in the park. Cross the bridge. Take in the skyline. Keep enough slack in the day that nobody feels like they are permanently half a block behind the plan.
That is the real ambition here.
Not maximum output. Just a good trip.
What I think will matter most
I suspect the best parts will not be the most expensive or most carefully scheduled ones.
It will probably be things like:
- the first proper Midtown walk
- seeing how the girls react to Central Park
- standing in Grand Central and letting the room do the work
- crossing Brooklyn Bridge with the skyline in front of us
- watching my wife see parts of Manhattan I already know I love
- random moments where everything is simple and everyone is in a good mood
That is the version of New York I want this trip to hold onto.
Not just “here is a famous building.”
More like, “this is what the city feels like.”
The one real rule
If I had to reduce the whole trip to one principle, it would be this:
Take it slow and have fun.
That is the rule.
No heroic scheduling. No obsession with optimization. No pretending children are tiny adults with infinite patience. No turning a great city into a checklist just because the internet made that feel normal.
Just a city I already love, a wife and two daughters I love even more, late spring in Manhattan, and five days to walk around and enjoy it together.
Which, now that I write it down, sounds like a very good babymoon.