Best/Cheapest way to go from Washington DC to NYC, Manhattan
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 20 Jul, 2023
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- Multiple bus lines serve this route (Vamoose, Greyhound, Megabus, others). Fares of $25–30 are common. I would pick based on convenience of departure and arrival locations, which vary.
- Amtrak non-Acela trains. This will cost more, but is far more comfortable.
- I once, in 2018 before covid, was able to rent a car in the opposite direction (JFK to IAD) without drop-off surcharge. Rate was less than $40/day for a large car. I am sure that rate is gone forever. Gas and tolls were more than the car. Car rates are highly volatile and subject to bewildering discount coupons and rates which you may not qualify for, or may not be able to find.
Amtrak is a civilized alterative to the bus. They claim $31 with discount for advance purchase. It’s sort of a commuter route, so there should be options.
https://www.amtrak.com/experience/why-amtrak/trains-to-nyc.html
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If you want the cheapest, look into the Chinatown Bus lines. I have had friends take them from DC to New York. The buses depart at early morning hours, but the trip is fast and cheap.
A great resource for this type of search is is Rome to Rio. For this specific search check https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Washington/New-York#r/Bus/s/0.
The site lists more than a dozen daily bus connections costing between $25 and $60. The trip typically takes between 4 and 5 hours.
In my experience, the best price is typically to be had by looking at bus services other than Greyhound. This experience is from 10 to 15 years ago, so it looks like both Greyhound and the non-Acela trains are more competitive, but I still found some lower prices (as low as $25 for Thursday of this week) by searching washington new york bus. These services may also take you from or to a more convenient location (or less, depending on your needs), so shop around on that criterion as well.
In other experience (even less recent), one-way auto rental surcharges are typically a few hundred dollars, so this is unlikely to be helpful for the budget-minded one-way traveler. I’ve heard that exceptions may be possible if the car rental company needs to redistribute their fleet, but I’ve never found such an exception when I’ve looked for one.
You can for sure take a car at Dulles and leave it at LGA/JFK, but keep in mind that one-way rentals will always be more expensive than a return one and you need to factor going to/from airports which cam climb to $15+/person not counting the evident time loss.
And between DC and NYC you can take Amtrak which would be what I’d recommend, and likely the cheapest.
Looking a month from now, you can get from DC to NY Penn. station by taking the Northeast Regional that takes 3h20min. for $31/person (there are also faster (30min faster) Acela trains, but is totally irrelevant here due to the $70 asking price)
There are also Greyhound buses but they are nearly $10 more expensive and take between 4h30 and 9h.
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