Hey American friends I am an Australian flying through (on my way to Iceland) in a few days with a 4.5 hour stopover at Newark airport 5pm Monday. For reasons that relate to a personal tragedy I’m hoping to quickly dash to Central Park in Manhattan and take a photo of myself for a family member and go straight back to the airport. Does anyone know enough about that airport’s current wait times and traffic at that time to advise me if this is an overly risky idea? Cheers
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It’s going to take a minimum an hour each way to get from Newark to Central Park and back. That gives you 2.5 hours at the absolute most to get through security/customs at EWR, go through baggage claim, get to the transit, deal with traffic, get wherever in the park you’re trying to go, get back to transit, back to EWR, back through security at EWR and to your gate.
Not a great idea IMO.
It’s doable if everything goes great, but you’ll be cutting it hella close
You are relying on traffic being below average both ways. Risky proposition.
That is not possible. I’m sorry. If it’s important to you, can you extend your stopover 24 hours?
Depending on the time of day/week, the traffic can be quite bad. It takes 1-2 hours to drive to NYC, and then you’d have to find parking, then drive back. Not enough time because you also have to go through customs when you return.
You could take the NJ Transit Train, which takes about 45 minutes from Newark Airport to Penn Station. Then you’d take a subway to Central Park. That trip would probably take 1.5-2 hours each way. Again, not possible. (You’re getting to the stations, transferring trains, walking from subway to Central Park. It all takes time.)
You could make it
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Wait, international? You land in Newark and have to go through customs to leave the terminal?
If all stars align, it’s doable.
Me personally? I wouldn’t try it
The /r/AskNYC sub might be the best place to ask this. That said, this sounds dubious. Don’t forget that if Newark will be your first port of entry in the US when flying from Australia, you’ll have to clear Immigration and Customs, and then check in separately for the next leg of your journey to Iceland.
No.
I wouldn’t. If the stars align you might make it.
Thanks for the advice everyone. Sounds like the risk is too high, I’ll listen to your voices of reason
Where are you clearing customs? Are they interlining your bags or do you have to clear customs with your baggage?
You’d be cutting it really close. Public transportation requires three legs in each direction, and navigating them for the first time would be pretty daunting. Under normal circumstances, a taxi would be fine, but bad traffic can very easily ruin your schedule.
Don’t forget that getting through customs and immigration at the airport can easily take an hour too, eating into your layover time.
It might theoretically be possible, but no way in hell would I bet an international flight on it at the height of rush hour. A car ride could easily be over an hour each way in traffic. Public transport *might* be faster at that time of day, but not fast enough, and you’d also have to deal with navigating two different systems (NJ Transit or Amtrak + NYC subway).
It’s not *impossible*, but it’s *very ambitious*.
In the Before Times, the general rule of thumb was that you really need a 6 hour layover to go out of the airport to do something. But that “do something” is more like go outside of the airport in that immediate area. For example, LAX has an In and Out Burger nearby. Lisbon has a neighborhood just a couple metro stops away from their airport.
But this isn’t that, this is going to something that’ll take an hour to and from. On a good day with everything going right.
Best to pin this trip to Central Park for another time.
Can you maybe get the pic on return trip?
Bad idea
Any chance you can change tickets for a later flight to Iceland on the way out? Or change tickets to a later time on the way back to Australia?
Perhaps even an overnight stay?
Your plan would be suuuper high risk. Not only is Monday at 5 miserable for traffic it is probably also miserable for customs at the airport.
Just pray that your flight is overbooked and you can volunteer to go on one the next morning for a voucher.
I go to school at Rutgers Newark and work in Manhattan. Idk man you’re cutting it close with the whole airport extra baggage (pun intended). You can get to Central Park and back in that time but idk with all the security you’ll have to go through.
You can take the Newark Airtrain (part of the airport) directly to Penn Station and then hop on the subway to Central Park. You won’t have to deal with traffic which is going to be super important.
If you attempt this, you will probably miss your flight. I’m sorry!
Dear god no. It’s about $15-20 round trip, then you have to get in and out of the shitstorm of an airport so take about an 45 minutes each way, then you have to get through TSA, and the boarding. It may leave you with 1-2 hours
I don’t know your budget, but you could book BLADE and take a helicopter from Newark to West 30th. Looks to be $195 one way.
https://www.blade.com/blade-airport-nyc-map
In my experience if you’re changing airlines you will arrive late and if you sprint like a maniac you’ll barely make your flight with no time to take a pee much less cross the city.
Wouldn’t risk it. I’ve got a 10 hour layover at JFK Friday and that’s like the minimum time I’d have to have to actually leave lol
Newark is better than JFK.
But still customs and security lines are unpredictable in a New York City airport.
Oof – technically possible but *very* risky