New York City Walking Itinerary – Brooklyn
In this post I will show you a nice walking tour that will guide you to my favorite photo spots around the Brooklyn Bridge. The tour is around 10km / 6 Miles long and you can easily spend half a day if you want to explore all the sights and take some amazing shots! I would definitely recommend doing this tour early in the morning. For the best experience, you start before sunrise ;-). Otherwise, the Brooklyn Bridge and a few other sights will be super crowded.
I hope you will enjoy reading this guide as well doing this tour on your own!
If you want to do this tour on your own, open the Itinerary Map on your Smartphone. This link should open up directly in Google Maps. With this map, it should be super easy to follow
Enjoy!
TL;DR - Overview
The Itinerary will cover the following points in this order: Brooklyn Bridge, Dumbo, Skyline View, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Pebble Beach, Manhattan Bridge.
If you do this tour, you should definitely use the Itinerary Map. With this Itinerary, you have a pretty nice plan for a day in New York City with a lot of great photo spots!
Start of the Tour
You can start the tour either at the Subway Station “Brooklyn Bridge City Hall Station” (Line 4,5,6) or at “Chamber St. Station” (Line J, Z). From there you should walk towards the Brooklyn Bridge Pedestrian Pathway. You really can’t miss it. Depending on the time, it will start to get pretty crowded pretty soon. But don’t worry, it’ll get better later on.
Brooklyn Bridge
Now as you are on the Brooklyn Bridge, take your time and explore. There are a lot of awesome photo opportunities. Just be careful with all the bicycles! Oh and don’t forget to take a nice selfie as well.
After you enjoyed the beauty of this impressive bridge, walk up until the first pedestrian exit and take it. After that just follow the street towards the East River (or follow the crowd).
On the way to the next photo location, you can buy some water at Peas & Pickles. Stay Hydrated!
The Hidden Manhattan Bridge View
No. just kidding. This spot is super popular and crowded ;-). However, I think it is, of course, worth a visit and you should definitely take the standard postcard image here!
After getting your image, turn to the west (towards and underneath Brooklyn Bridge) to our next stop. If you are hungry you can get a burger at Shake Shack.
Dumbo & Skyline Lookout
Walk along the riverside and enjoy the awesome view. This place is worth visiting again at night. If you have a ND filter with you, you should use it here to create some long exposure skyline images.
Besides taking some images you can use the benches to get some rest before continuing en route along the riverside.
Brooklyn Bridge Park - Pier 6
After a couple of minutes walking along the riverside you will reach Pier 6 and the little park located on it. If you need some rest, this is a great place. So take your time to explore and enjoy the view.
Brooklyn Heights Promenade
After you are good to go, our next stop is the Brooklyn Heights Promenade which will again provide an amazing view of the New York City skyline. To reach the entrance of the Promenade enter Remsen Street. Enjoy the lovely neighbourhood and houses on your way from Pier 6 to the entrance of the promenade.
Following the promenade you will basically walk back towards the Brooklyn Bridge. When you reach the Brooklyn Bridge area, continue walking towards Manhattan Bridge / Riverside until you find yourself at Pebble Beach.
Optional: Explore Dumbo even further
Before walking towards Manhattan Bridge you could also explore a few more spots between Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge. I marked all of these spots in the map.
Pebble Beach
From here you can get a beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bridge as well as Manhattan Bridge. Enjoy the beach as well as the optional sights marked on the map.
Under the Manhattan Bridge / Flea Market
Before going back from Brooklyn to Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge, our last stop is the area under Manhattan Bridge. This is a pretty cool location for getting some photos. If you do this tour on a Sunday, you can visit the flea market as well.
Manhattan Bridge
Now it time to say goodbye to Brooklyn and walk back to Manhattan. We are doing this by using the Manhattan Bridge pedestrian walkway. From the walkway of this Bridge you can get some typical NYC shots which you definitely already have seen on (my) Instagram.
Before you enter the bridge you should know that it is super noisy due to the trains crossing the bridge. Also on summer days it can get pretty hot. If you don’t want to walk across the bridge, you can walk to the York Street Subway Station and catch a train back to Manhattan.
End of the Tour
After leaving the Manhattan Bridge, you are in the midst of Chinatown. So if you still have some energy left, go and explore Chinatown!
By doing this you can totally make sure that you’re leaving this tour with plenty great pics of many different neighbourhoods in NYC!
I hope you enjoyed reading this post! If you are in New York City and want to get the most beautiful spots covered and make it fit your schedule, you should definitely do this tour!
