<p>coming from the west coast, i like big cities, loud noise, and bright lights. i'm sure ithaca will be a lively campus and i dont doubt that i'll have a fun time, but i'm sure that i wanna go out to new york city on some of weekends. it'd be AWESOME to go like one weekend a month, but i know i dont have the money or time or that, haha. but nevertheless, i know i'm gonna make some trips out there, maybe one or two a semester, i dont know, i can't gage it without knowing what my schedule will be like...</p>
<p>but here's my question, how easy is it to get out of ithaca and travel to new york? is like a greyhound, or any kind of bus/train station easily accessible? what are those rates like?</p>
<p>there is the shortline bus which takes about 4 hrs to go express to the city. they will pick you up on campus in one of 3 areas (north, west, collegetown) and bring you downtown to the station, where you can purchase a ticket. this is obviously (besides a car and driving yourself) one of the easiest ways to go - i can't say what it is price-wise because i don't take this route, but i think it's probably $60 RT.
if you can secure a ride to syracuse somehow (someone else going there), you can pick up the train there, which goes directly down the hudson. this is a little more expensive, but possibly faster because you don't have traffic (even if you have to make a few stops).
you could also check out the ride board at cuinfo.cornell.edu whenever you're going to see if someone is driving down in exchange for some gas money.</p>
<p>i wouldn't recommend traveling to nyc on a regular basis. the bus ride is hellish and the prices are steep. last time i did that, it was $82 round trip. if you had time, maybe you could go for a vacation over fall break with some friends. but remember that cornell is not close to new york.</p>
<p>also, you won't have that much time to just run off during the semester, because of all the work you have to do.</p>
<p>I agree with pretty much everyone else in this thread. It's pretty difficult to go from Ithaca to New York City. It's a six hour bus ride, and when my friend went to the City last weekend it cost her almost $100 round trip. </p>
<p>Fortunately, if you ever have the urge to go to a city-like environment, you don't actually have to go to New York City. Syracuse is only about an hour away and there's stuff to do there. </p>
<p>And also? There is always lots of stuff going on at Cornell. You'll be meeting lots of new people and there are all kinds of parties and stuff going on. So chances are you won't have all that much time to go to a "big city" anyway because there's so much happening on-campus already.</p>
<p>Being from outside NYC, I've done the bus a few times and done the drive many more.</p>
<p>You WILL want to kill the people on your bus. There is no way to ignore the screaming baby, the weird person sitting next to you, or the erratic bus driver. However, it gets you there, and you can accomplish some work, which you certainly can't do while driving.</p>
<p>I found that while I wanted to go home regularly, I usually didn't want to leave Cornell for that long. My random trips always happened to be on the weekend that the whole floor bonded at a party that they still bring up 5 years later, or the like, and the amount of work I needed to do usually trumped the desire to go anywhere. Remember also that NYC is a very expensive place, both to get to and to stay at. My recommendation is to find someone from there whose place you can crash at, and/or to go for an extended weekend, like Fall Break, to get the most out of it.</p>