Mike Baron

Taking the subway from JFK airport to anywhere in New York City is the cheapest and most reliable option. Subways run on a schedule and are not affected as much by weather or traffic. If you are comfortable riding the subway and are OK with walking up and down the stairs to the subway stations, they are really the best way to navigate the city.

For those of you who are not as adventurous, we’ve got you covered with a guide to all of your options.

Taking an Uber or Lyft from the JFK airport to Manhattan is almost identical to taking a cab. I prefer the Uber/Lyft option because the cars are usually nicer than cabs, I like getting my receipt emailed to me, and I don’t like fumbling around with my wallet when I have all my bags with me. Another nice option about Uber/Lyft is you can pre-arrange a ride including pre-arranging an Uber/Lyft family ride that includes a car seat. Finally, I just kind of like to follow the map on the app.

Of course Uber is not the only option, New York City offers many options for getting from JFK to the city. We cover all of them, but the size of everything here can be overwhelming so we are here to simplify some of the details.

Taxi is the quickest and easiest way to get from JFK to anywhere in Manhattan. It’s also the most iconic. We cover other options, of course, but enough people come to NYC with a little anxiety about hailing a yellow cab that we felt it deserves a post of its own.

We’ve seen a few other sites with brief instructions, but to ease your stress, this tutorial comes with photos from each terminal.