Good morning Jack,
This sounds like an impressive plan. Do you know what you want to see or do in those cities, or are you just going to wing it? Do you make lists of the things you want to do when you travel, or do you let your spirit guide you when you get there?
I guess you could say that I do a bit of everything you list whenever I go somewhere. In the end I think it pretty much comes down to letting my spirit guide me in whichever direction I end up going in. I think that can work out best since you can always stumble into things that you might miss if you were going by a list. Of course, I usually have some idea of the things I want to see and typically I usually get a book and read up on the place. I always think it is funny that every book on every place reminds you that it is not a good idea to explore low income areas in the middle of the night
Now who would do that anyway
The same is true for parks by the way. I remember when I first got to NYC and I wasn't quite sure what to do. The view from the window was so surreal. It was almost like I had posters of NYC all over the walls. The room was on the 38th floor and was a corner room. So there were big windows on two sides of the room. When I first opened the door of the room I was greeted with this huge window which was actually in the bathroom. It just didn't look real. Anyway, I ventured out into the streets and just kind of took stock of where I was. I definitely did not want to loose the hotel
Although it was a little too big to loose that easily; however, everything in NYC is huge. I got a Panina at this place near the hotel. I wasn't even quite sure what that was at the time. I knew I needed food and it looked good. They cook them up there. So I took that back to the room and observed the skyline again. I became more and more comfortable with the city with each trip out and I began to pretty well know where things were including the hotel. The hotel sold tickets for the Gray Line which I would recommend to anyone. That is definitely the way to see the city. So by the time I left the area around the hotel which was Times Square and the Theatre District became like home. It's kind of funny the hotel I stayed at which is a very nice hotel is right beside the hotel that has been rated the dirtiest hotel in the nation. It is called the Hotel Carter. The one I stayed at was the Westin Times Square.