This post has been contributed by Vonnette Monteith, whose family won a Best Western 'Retro To Now Road Trip' This week, they'll see some popular northeast U.S. desitnations, first as 'retro' travelers without technology, then fully equipped....read all posts in the series here.

We headed to New York City – which is always so cool because you see the city skyline as you drive in so it was very fun to point it out to the kids. The kids were just amazed at all the activity and lights. The hotel was at the best vantage point for the kids, right by the M&M World store.  There is a huge screen with M&Ms doing crazy things. We were outside the hotel for about 20 mins. while we were unloading and it was the quietest the kids had been the whole weekend!

We are staying at the Best Western President Hotel at Times Square - what a hotel!!! It was a great end to the retro portion of our trip as we walked into our room and it was all white (white tables, walls, couch, linen) and black. Not the best for a mom though. "Oh my gosh kids go wash your hands and don't touch anything” Actually it was very fun for them as they have never seen anything that modern. There was also a box waiting for us from AAA. Inside was DVDs and electronic car games. The kids don't have any electronic car games, so getting them to sleep was a chore.

After settling in we headed downtown. The one request of the kids was to go see the Statue of Liberty. We went by way of Tribeca for some yummy desserts and coffee because I knew that our meal times would be off by a couple of hours in NYC. We also walked down to Battery Park showing the kids how Manhattan was founded and pointing out a few of the older buildings and churches. After seeing the Statue of Liberty we took the Subway up to Chinatown. We walked through Chinatown into little Italy. It is so cool to walk through that area at night with everything lit up. Definitely had to hold on to all the kids as they were very awestruck and I was worried they would wander into some store and never come back.

We had dinner at Puglia in Little Italy which is a great family restaurant because they have long tables and always have a singer. The singer that I listened to there 23 years ago still performs there. From there we took the Metro back to Times Square and walked back to the hotel. The kids were exhausted until we got off the metro and landed in Times Square. That is enough excitement to wake up anyone! We are seeing 5th Avenue this morning,including FAO Schwartz and Central Park, before heading to Boston this afternoon.