Spring is a great time of year with decently warm weather and schools talking time off for Spring Break. Many students go on vacation to warmer climates with their families or friends. Hotels, resorts, and flights get booked up quickly since it’s a popular time of year with students having time off. Spring Break is a big time for relaxation. Most people are on a budget these days and cannot afford a vacation but there are plenty of things to do that do not involve spending a lot and going away and there are things you can do that are within your reach and budget.

For many college students it is a time when they gather as many friends as possible and party it up. Many college students though get carried away and get too wild and crazy at this time because they feel it is their time to get loose and maybe this will be their only opportunity to do so and they take advantage of it. College students should just be careful and set limits for themselves about how far off the handle they choose to get. To state it simply, all students: college, high school and even middle school students see Spring Break as a time for fun and wonder how they are going to make it as much fun as possible in the short time they have off. Fun though does not mean getting carried away. It means, knowing how much fun is the right amount of fun within reason. Going to parties and getting totally drunk out of their minds is a terrible way to spend your Spring Break because you will just look foolish and feel really sick afterwards. Sometimes it can be dangerous and people get hurt. That might seem like fun but it’s actually the wrong type of fun and could be dangerous. Some students on the other hand, don’t go anywhere during Spring Break. They use it as a time to get a lot of school work and projects done, spend relaxing time with their family or friends, put in more hours at work and take care of the everyday things that they might have put off. Whatever we do, we all mostly try to spend it productively or just try to cram a lot of activity into a short amount of time.

Sometimes people plan for Spring Break so much that they are really over planning and when the time comes they never even end up doing what they expected or hoped to do in the first place and it’s a total let down. Don’t set your hopes too high that if plans don’t happen you are not greatly disappointed. Big fancy vacations that in prior years many families and students would go on, simply are not affordable due to the economy and loss of jobs. This is a shame but this is also reality. People are cutting back and this means that people’s Spring Break might not be as exciting as in the past years. More people are finding exciting but local things to do without traveling. What is there to do locally? Where do you go when you do have the money and can afford to get away? What things might you catch up on in your daily life? These are all excellent questions.

Spring Break has become popular due to MTV. MTV hosts their annual Spring Break at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, which is one of the top Spring Break destinations, along with Florida and Cancun, Mexico. Many of these places have deals and specials going on during this time; but like I stated before, many people these days cannot afford the vacations they used to even with a great deal. There are many people who do still go on a vacation and have a great time and have an experience from which they can build memories. Cancun has been a Spring Break mainstay for over 30 years.  Thousands of college students flock to this Mexican paradise every year to enjoy its sunshine, beautiful beaches and jumping nightlife. Also Florida has been at the focus of Spring Break festivities for decades. While Fort Lauderdale was once the unofficial home of Spring Break for previous generations, in recent years, Miami Beach appears to have claimed the title. Miami Beach has the most impressive range of resorts and tourist attractions and its long stretch of beautiful sandy beaches are second-to-none. South Beach in Florida also has some of the most exciting and diverse nightlife in the world. People also travel to Europe, although less so now due to Europe’s economic problems and demonstrations. Europe is for people who are not big party-goers. Other popular destinations are in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica, Nassau, and Puerto Rico and sometimes combined with cruises. All these places are great if you are not on a budget like many people are these days.

Spring Break can be a great time to take advantage of many different things. Maybe you might even want to head for snow (at nearby Hunter Mountain) instead of sand for your vacation spot. If you are staying local, you can call up an old friend or relative who you have not seen in awhile and make plans to see a movie or play, go on an adventure walk, enjoy nature, visit a new restaurant that you have not tried out before, take a class on a topic of your interest, read a book, make a painting, write a song and perform it at an open-mic venue, visit a museum, and the list goes on. It’s Spring Break and a good time of the year to try something new in the nice weather. No matter what you do, vacation or not, you can make this time enjoyable. A simple road trip is not expensive and still gets you to sightsee different places and stay at a hostel to save money on accommodations.

You might want to go to a museum if you are into culture. Several museums in Manhattan have pricy entrance fees but the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) only costs an entrance fee of whatever you are willing and want to give and this means that you can get in for just $1 if that is all you have or want to donate to the museum. The exhibits are always changing at the MET, so even if you have been there before you can go again and will see and experience something different.  There are also many parks throughout Westchester County and New York that you can visit and where you can enjoy a nice picnic with family or friends. If mountain hiking is something you enjoy there is a very beautiful mountain spot called Mosses Mountain in Green Belt Staten Island.

Another great day can be spent at a flea market in Manhattan where you can buy lots of great and valuable things at great prices and sometimes lower than what it sells for in stores and many of the items you will find are antiques and cannot even be found in stores and only can be bought at these flea markets. The ones I have been to are Green Flea, Hell’s Kitchen’s and Antiques Garage. Green Flea is located on Columbus Avenue between W. 76^th and W. 77^th Street on the Upper West Side and is open every Sunday from 10am to 5:30pm. Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market is located on West 39^th street between 9^th & 10^th Avenue and open all year long every Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Last, the Antiques Garage unlike the others is inside and that is good in case of bad weather. The Antiques Garage is located at 112 W. 25^th street. If you love browsing thrift store types of items then you might want to go to one of these Flea Markets in the city. You might just like browsing the flea market even if you are not looking to buy. These are just some of the things you can do and even though you may not be looking to visit New York City’s tourist attractions, the best thing about being in NYC is that many of the top things to do NYC are either free or relatively inexpensive.

If the weather is good this Spring Break, you can enjoy guided tours of Central Park or rent a bike to explore Central Park independently. Waking across the Brooklyn Bridge is a great way to see excellent and beautiful views and is something to do in NYC, which allows you to take a break from the tourist crowds. Taking a ride on the Staten Island Ferry is one of the many free things to do in the city and is a great way to see beautiful views. There are also many interesting sites and landmarks you can see and visit in NYC such as the Statue of Liberty, Stock Exchange and Rockefeller Center. Also, the Roosevelt Island Tram is a fun way to get from midtown Manhattan to Roosevelt Island, while enjoying panoramic views on the way. Next, The Botanical Gardens and Bronx Zoo are other fun, exciting and great outdoor places to visit. You can eat out in such wonderful districts as Greenwich Village, Little Italy, SoHo and Chinatown.

Here are more things in New York City to do that might interest you. If you like the zoo there is a great zoo in Central Park and even though it’s a lot smaller than the Bronx Zoo it’s still great to see the animals there. There is an admission charge just like the Bronx Zoo but it’s not expensive. Not sure how much it cost to get in but the museum of Television and Radio is a fantastic place and there is a room where you can search on their computers for any old television show in the world that you want to see again and you can watch it on one of their many screens. Watching these old shows brings back many memories. Basically, you can see programs that haven’t run in years, films that haven’t been shown in decades and historic events as they happened. If you want to be in doors or outside, Manhattan has many places to go and things to take advantage of during this Spring Break. You can explore them for yourself or go to one of the several places I have mentioned.