Times Square: New York Travel Guide (4.7★)

How this guide was made: Editor-reviewed, AI-assisted. Facts are pulled from live Google Places data; images are licensed or public domain. See our editorial policy.

Why go

You come up out of the subway and the light hits you before the sound does — a wall of LED screens three, four, five stories tall, stacked so densely over Broadway and Seventh Avenue that there’s no visible sky, just a moving collage of ads, film trailers, and news tickers reflecting off yellow cabs. Times Square isn’t subtle, and it isn’t trying to be. It’s the loud, unapologetic heart of the Theater District, and even if you’ve seen it a thousand times in movies, standing in the middle of it — traffic-free since the pedestrian plazas went in — is a genuinely different sensation. This is a place people rate extraordinarily highly not for tranquility but for spectacle, and it delivers.

Getting there

Times Square sits squarely on top of one of the busiest transit hubs in the city: the Times Sq–42nd St station serves the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R, W, and S (shuttle to Grand Central) lines, with exits dumping you right onto 42nd Street and Broadway. If you’re coming from Midtown hotels, it’s an easy 10–15 minute walk east or west along 42nd. Port Authority Bus Terminal is two blocks west on Eighth Avenue, and the Broadway theaters — the actual reason many visitors are here — fan out along 44th through 53rd Streets just north of the square itself.

What to see and do

The pedestrian plazas between 43rd and 47th Streets are where you want to plant yourself — red TKTS bleacher steps at 47th Street double as a viewing platform for the screens and a genuinely good people-watching perch. The Naked Cowboy, costumed characters, and street performers work this stretch constantly; a tip is expected if you pose for a photo with them, and it’s worth agreeing on an amount before the picture, not after. Duffy Square, the northern triangle, hosts the discount TKTS booth for same-day Broadway and off-Broadway tickets. One block south, the flagship stores — M&M’s World, the Hershey’s store, Sephora — are less about shopping and more about air conditioning and a breather from the crowds. If you have a couple of hours, pair the square with a walk into the actual Theater District blocks to see the marquees up close, or continue to Bryant Park, six blocks south, for a genuine patch of green.

When to go

Times Square never really closes, but the character of it shifts hard by hour. The quietest window, both on weekdays and weekends, is 7am to 10am — the screens are still blazing, the giant billboards look almost eerie against thin early crowds, and you can actually walk in a straight line. Avoid arriving on a weekend afternoon: foot traffic builds steadily from midday and stays dense from 1pm to 11pm, when the plazas fill with tour groups, photographers, and costumed characters working the crowds. After dark, roughly 8pm onward, is when the lights are at their most photogenic, so if you can’t make the morning slot, a weeknight evening is the next best trade-off between spectacle and elbow room.

How to visit like a local

New Yorkers who work in the area treat Times Square as something to cut through, not linger in — they walk the outer sidewalks on Seventh Avenue or Broadway rather than the packed central plazas, and you can do the same if you just need to pass through quickly. If you do want to experience the plaza itself, go early (7–10am) before the tour buses arrive, or push past 11pm when the crowds thin again but the screens are still going strong. Ticket scalpers and people in Elmo or Minion costumes will approach you aggressively — a polite “no thank you” without slowing down works better than engaging. For Broadway tickets, the TKTS booth at Duffy Square offers same-day discounts, but lines build fast, so arrive close to its opening for the best selection. Payment everywhere here is overwhelmingly by card or phone, though street performers and costumed characters expect cash tips. The single biggest rookie mistake is standing still in the middle of the crosswalk-turned-plaza to take a photo during peak afternoon hours — step to the raised seating areas or the edges instead, both for your own patience and everyone else’s.