Look at People
If you don’t want to look like a tourist …
make eye contact with a passerby, say “hello” or “how you doing?” as you’re walking, follow up with a few more words with those who respond with a smile and/or say something. Chat for awhile. Now you know a local, and that local is your best resource for that place and someone you will always remember, maybe even know as a longtime friend.
Be sure to click/tap on photos for a closer view. And check out other ways to see New York City … Look Around, Look Down, Look Up.

In NYC, everyone must stop for a red light. Everyone!
Life is good when your fairy godmother buys you ice cream.
You’re standing 1,100 ft on the sky deck at The Edge in Hudson Yards. You may want want to find a spiritual person to talk with.
Exhaustion and prayer often appear the same on a beaten-down face.
Two dudes get talking. The small one has questions, they swap stories. Good memory-building time on a sunny afternoon.
New Yorkers claim public spaces for their private space, albeit temporarily, to entertain themselves (and others).
Some New Yorkers may be difficult to spot because they avoid exposure to people, such as this fashion model.
Other New Yorkers are easily visible because they expose almost everything to the Central Park sun.
A cigarette is about sophistication for the fashionable.
Any kind of butt is one of life’s few pleasures for homeless folks.
Your soul needs to know Harlem. Take a free walking tour with this guy (Ryan), and then eat at Sylvia’s Restaurant.
You’ll meet lots of folks at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Get there soon after dawn and assume no bathrooms.
Dog-walking may be the morst popular — or mandatory — form of exercise in NYC. You can do it in your nightgown, between selfies, and as a lucrative source of income.
Want to see similar photos?
Look Up
Manhattan is an island of canyons; they’re called streets and avenues. As you walk them, focus on the canyon walls: their variety, textures, and how light plays on them.
Look Down
The subway system is the fastest, cheapest way to move around the City. Sure, some stations can be dim and grim. But look into the dark and down at the floors and experience something new and interesting.
Want to travel to other places?
Barcelona
Barcelona is an explosive visual experience of architecture, markets, and street folks, dominated by the billiant imagination of architect Antoni Gaudí whose mystifying church, La Sagrada Familia, has been under construction for over 140 years. Then there is the brilliant colors of the marketplace and the absorbing daily lives of locals.
Saudi Arabia & Beyond
Over the years I consulted in Saudi Arabia and explored the Arab Gulf region, I was fascinated by the area’s opulence of magnificent mosques and ambitious commercial developments, by the implosion of multicultural people in the “oasis” cities — Riyadh, Jubail, Dubai — by the graciousness of everyone, especially Saudis, and by the love for the desert.