Broadway, Birthday, and Beyond: Planning a Solo Blind Trip to NYC

I’m flying to New York in less than a week, and I’m still very much in the middle of planning everything. I’m traveling alone, and I’m blind, so it’s important to me that things are as accessible as possible. I’ve written a very detailed post about solo traveling when blind, but here is how I planned this particular trip. Hopefully a real world example will inspire some of you who want to travel but aren’t quite sure where to begin.

Why New York?

Why not? Everything I’ve heard from friends who have visited has made me also want to go. They tell me how fun it is. How there’s always something to do. I am also drawn in by the thought of Broadway and all the theatre I will be able to see. I’m also about to turn thirty and I find the idea of spending my birthday alone in another country hugely appealing. I’m not sure what that says about me!

Travel logistics

I booked both my hotel and flights through Expedia. I use the app all the time and it’s incredibly accessible if you are a VoiceOver user. I essentially use it for everything these days. You also collect points every time you fly or stay in a hotel which is nice. I’m currently in the process of saving mine up until I reach a point where I can go on a trip for free, though I’ve still got a little way to go.

I ended up overpaying on tax in the 2022-23 tax year, and when I got my refund from HMRC I dropped it on this trip, which is an indication of my excellent financial planning skills. I am clearly thinking about my future here. This is why I decided to splurge and fly business class for the first and likely only time in my life. I’ll be flying with British Airways from London Heathrow. Although I booked my flight in a third-party app, Expedia gives you the option of linking to airline loyalty programmes, so I can still collect Avios at the same time. Happy days!

When booking a hotel my priority was that it was quite central. I’m going to be honest, I don’t know a lot about New York. I was just excited by the idea of going and wanted to be able to get to the theatre. When you view hotels in the app, one cool feature is that it will show you roughly how long it will take you to walk to popular destinations. For example my hotel is about a fifteen minute walk from Grand Central station. It was important to me that any hotel I stayed at had generally positive reviews and was close to the things I was interested in. Whilst I’m perfectly able to use public transport, I will almost always choose to walk if I can, so how walkable the area is motivated me a lot when making my choice. I will provide a more in-depth review of my hotel after the trip, however for safety reasons I’m not comfortable sharing the specific location before I travel.

I’m also staying in London the night before I fly, and chose to stay in a hotel that I’ve previously stayed in that I really enjoyed. How staff treat a blind person traveling alone can be very hit and miss. But in this particular hotel they were so friendly and welcoming. They gave me all of the information I could need without invading my personal space and grabbing me when all I was doing was walking around. It may seem like a small thing, but you can never guarantee that this will be the case.

Activities

I have a whole ten days to fill, and I can honestly say that planning an itinerary has absolutely been the hardest thing. I made a list of all the things I might like to do, such as watching a Broadway show and visiting museums, and then set about figuring out which ones and how I would book it all.

Broadway

I could not go to New York without seeing a Broadway show. I chose not to look for shows with audio description because I honestly found accessing this information really awkward, and I am so familiar with the majority of musicals I should be fine anyway. However I did discover a cool app called GalaPro which lets you access pre-recorded audio description for a number of shows.

I’ve booked a ticket to Hadestown, which is a show that I’ve wanted to watch for absolutely ages. I booked using TodayTix but the accessibility of the app isn’t brilliant so it’s not necessarily one that I’d recommend. Seat maps on the app seem to be really inconsistent where accessibility is concerned. I honestly think there are better ways of booking tickets, though even some of the theatres don’t offer an accessible way to do so. There is definitely room for improvement here.

I also really want to see Merrily We Roll Along as both Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff are in it, however both the theatre booking site and TodayTix are totally inaccessible for this. I’m going to crack soon and just use Aira to screen share and help me book the ticket.

Museums

I was genuinely surprised by how detailed some of the museums were on their accessibility pages. It really feels as though they care about accessibility and making sure everyone can participate. Having had very mixed experiences when visiting museums in London, this is really nice to see. I emailed the American Museum of Natural History, the Intrepid Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, all of which stated that they will provide specific tours for blind guests. I’ve heard back from both the Intrepid Museum and AMNH, so have booked in tours with them. These are provided at no extra charge other than the ticket you would pay for as standard. I haven’t yet heard back from MoMA, so fingers crossed I will hear something from them before I get there.

A lot of the museums have also partnered with the Bloomberg Connects app, which gives you access to all sorts of things, including guides, audio tours, and video and audio content. The app is also fully accessible if you’re a VoiceOver user. There’s clearly a commitment to accessibility, as the website directly mentions it. So even if I decide to do some solo exploring I can use this app to access content.

Not all museum interactions have been so positive. I was fascinated by the idea of the Museum of Sex, which provides a look into the history and cultural significance of human sexuality. Their website is pretty awful, and when I emailed them they got back to me to let me know that they don’t offer either tours or audio guides. So I’ll probably be giving that one a miss.

There are a few other museums that I haven’t booked with specifically, but may just show up at to have a look. I’m not expecting a guide if I show up without letting them know in advance, but I’m happy to explore on my own.

Other tours and activities

Here are some other things I have on my list at the moment:

• A tour of Radio City Music Hall.
• Visiting the Empire State building. Can you really go to NYC without doing that?
• A tour of Rockefeller Center and top of the rock!
• Catching a show at 54 Below. I’ve followed this place for so long, watching clips from their shows on YouTube. I can’t wait to actually go there in person.

There are lots of other things I’d like to do, though I don’t have specific dates in mind for them yet. I want to leave myself a bit of flexibility so that I can wake up in the morning on some days and pick from a list of things to do, rather than having tickets to things every single day. I’m also hoping to catch up with a couple of friends while I’m there.

Getting around

Finding your way around a new place can be kind of awkward when you’re blind. Luckily, there’s so much information about New York City and how to navigate it. It’s supposed to be very walkable, but it also has an excellent public transport system. I came across this guide to the NYC subway which wasn’t written specifically for blind people but is hugely descriptive. I also read these ten tips for navigating NYC and this New York grid system explainer.

By combining the information from all of these sources, I have a pretty good idea of how I will navigate New York and find any locations I’m looking for. I’m now able to look at an address, work out the cross streets, and even what side of the street it should be located on. I can guarantee that I will make mistakes when I’m over there, but it’s a great start. I’m honestly excited to start working the travel part of my brain in this regard. It’s been a while since I was anywhere with a solid grid system. In fact the last time was when I lived in Denver in 2020, and so I’ve somewhat fallen behind in my ability to tease out a location just through numbers.

Budget and saving money

I’m going to be honest, I’ve gone way over budget with this trip. I’m usually pretty good about planning a solid budget and making sure everything falls within it. Not so much this time. I actually found a really good deal on my hotel, although I totally ruined that by paying for a more expensive flight. Most of the activities I want to do will be things I have to pay for. I’ve somewhat reduced the pain of this by spending yet more money on the New York Pass. Although it is another thing I’ve had to pay for, it does now mean I get free entry into 104 different attractions. So as long as I plan my trip around these, I can end up saving a good amount of money in the end. That is what I’m planning on doing. Apart from my theatre tickets and the show at 54Below, pretty much every other activity I’d like to do is included in the pass. And on days when I don’t have so much planned, I can choose from the list of activities they have on offer in order to fill my time.

If I show up to a museum and it’s not that great, I won’t feel so bad about leaving because I haven’t specifically bought a ticket for it, and I can just go and check out another one. I actually think this is a really great way to figure out which locations are most accessible. If I was spending 40 dollars on a ticket I’d probably feel like I had to stay all morning, even if there was very little on offer for me. This way I can leave and find something else to do, and it’s all covered by this pass.

You link the pass to an app on your phone, which also turns out to be quite accessible. So I’m hopeful that this will end up being a good investment of my money in the end. I will report back in a couple of weeks.

As you can see, my travel plans are still a bit chaotic. However I like it this way. It’s nice to have a solid balance between planned activities and free time to be filled with whatever catches my eye on the day. I spent so much of my life believing that I had to plan out every single detail because I’m blind. It’s nice to completely push that idea to the side and do things because I want to, when I want to.