It’s your first time to New York and you’re not sure what to do. Well, the list of activities is longer than 1,000 posts could do justice. But if you are fan of museums, might I recommend the American Museum of Natural History on 81st Street and Central Park West. Take the B/C train (orange or blue lines) to the 81 Street stop and enter there.

If you are a thrifty consumer, or even a frugal one, I have a bit of a trick for you. If you are entering the museum during a peak time—which is almost any time during the summer—play the crowds to your advantage. Pretend to stand on line in the self purchase lines off to the left from when you first walk in. After a little bit, turn and walk to the entrance on the far left. The guards rarely check your ticket, so if they see you waiting on line, they never check you. Then you are free to explore. The only problem with this is that you can’t see the featured exhibits that the museum has to offer. But there is still plenty to see.

I assume that you can guess what’s in a museum of natural history so I won’t bore you with repetitive details of what to see, but if you can, head to the biology section. Here, you can sit in a class room setting and perform a lab experiment, which had been a while for me, so it was interesting. You get to see your own DNA strands right in front of you. It’s kind of cool.

Anyway, after your exploration of knowledge and interest, I would recommend walking down Central Park West towards Columbus Circle. This walk is filled with entertaining scenery from nature to street entertainers. You can walk past the infamous Dakota, the building based around Jack Finney’s master novel "Time and Again" and the once home of former Beatle, John Lennon. It is also the place where we all became aware of Mark David Chapman. Then you can walk through the park to Strawberry Fields then back to Central Park West towards Trump Plaza and the Time Warner Center. You can get some good shopping done. Enjoy!

The building of the Museum of Natural History was breathtaking! This place is ginormous! You need your walking shoes on for this museum, that is for sure.

The displays range from animals to rocks, a bit for everyone. If you don’t plan on spending several hours, I suggest you map out what you want to see before you leave the lobby. This is where I killed my best friend, Sue’s, feet… she didn’t let me forget it the rest of the trip. Or even to this day (ha, ha… Sue if you’re reading this, I love you).

This museum is fantastic. I highly recommend it, because you can buy a ticket for this museum and the art museum for only $2 more then you would for a ticket to each. They're both very educational and interesting.

When I was small, my parents always knew what I wanted to do that weekend when my reply would be, "I want to see the big elephant!" Unlike soldiers, for whom "going to see the elephant" was a metaphor for combat, my big elephant was just that—a taxidermy elephant mounted in the entrance of the American Museum of Natural History.

As a child, I was absolutely astounded by the sheer size of the museum. Located on a quiet city block across from the idyllic Central Park, the museum was much like the TARDIS on "Doctor Who," larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Room after room spread out before me, bringing exotic animals and far away cultures closer to me than I could imagine.

On school trips, while most students flocked to the dinosaur exhibit, I headed off for the Meso-America exhibit, where the shrunken heads and Olmec statues were. Here, I would spend ages pressing my nose to the glass as I stared at Mayan flints and Aztec sun disks that I would finally see in person a decade later.

Unlike other museums, this is not just for the wide and wondering eyes of children. On our weekend in the city, David and I dropped out luggage in our hotel room and immediately hopped on the subway to the museum. We were famished, so our first stop was the cafeteria, which, admittedly, leaves a lot to be desired. I remember the cafeteria being on an upper level, in the Oceania room, complete with salads and sandwiches, but it seems to have disappeared in favour of the ground-floor cafeteria. This menu is, without a doubt, geared toward the young ones, with plenty of pizza and french fries at exorbitant prices and very little in the way of adult food. We ended up splitting a $5 kid’s meal of dinosaur chicken nuggets, fries, and a Coke just to tide us over until the museum closed and we could head to Hard Rock for a real meal.

Unlike the downstairs cafeteria, the museum does not disappoint. Back in my old favorite, the Meso-America room, I pointed out the model of the El Castillo in Chichen-Itza, explaining how I’d seen and sat on the steps of the real thing, dragged him to the shrunken heads, and essentially became a small kid again. New displays (or at least displays I haven’t noticed before), such as the Chilean mummy, fascinated me, while the Pacific Island exhibit, including items from Easter Island and Samoa, fascinated my boyfriend.

We waited until about 30 minutes to closing before heading to see the über-popular dinosaur exhibit. While the skeletons did impress, I found myself gravitating more toward the mammal fossils, including a small set of teeth you needed a magnifying glass to inspect. Finally, we headed downstairs, past my childhood favourite–the elephant–before heading home for the night.

The museum is open daily 10am to5:45pm. For more information, visit www.amnh.org.

Before I begin, there's the admission part. Admission is "suggested," meaning you don't have to pay the actual admission, but it’s recommended because it goes towards research, exhibits, etc. My friend and I were going to pay the student rate (if you have a student ID, you pay a discounted rate), but the guy we bought tickets from had a crush on us and let us pay, like, a dollar apiece. So flirt if need be.

I really like science and natural history museums, so it’s a very interesting place. Again, you will be searched before you enter, just like any place in NYC. My favorite part was the dinosaurs. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. I loved dinosaurs as a child and had never seen a dinosaur fossil before! Just so you know, there are some exhibits that are anatomically correct, and if you are one of those parents who do not feel their child is ready for that, avoid those sections. Other than that, it’s a great family outing!