The Staten Island Ferry
Free, 24 hours a day, 25 minutes each way, and it passes the Statue of Liberty — the best value in New York City by an enormous margin.
- What it costs
- Completely free. No ticket, no booking, no catch.
- Best in
- Any season
- Where
- 4 Whitehall Street, New York, NY 10004
- Official site
- siferry.com
Sit on the right side
Going from Manhattan to Staten Island, stand on the starboard (right-hand) side — that's the side the Statue of Liberty passes on. Coming back, it's the left.
Get outside on the deck rather than sitting inside. The lower outdoor decks at the front and back are the good spots, and they fill quickly, so board early and go straight out.
You pass the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Governors Island, and you get the full Lower Manhattan skyline receding behind you. People pay a great deal for a worse version of this on a tour boat.
You have to get off
At St. George everyone disembarks — you cannot stay on the boat and ride straight back. You walk through the terminal and rejoin the queue for the next departure, which takes about ten minutes.
Most visitors do exactly that and never leave the building. It works, and it's a fine free hour.
But leave the terminal
There is an entire borough ten minutes' walk away that almost nobody sees.
Within a short walk or bus ride: the Staten Island Museum in the terminal building itself, SIUH Community Park with minor-league baseball right by the water, the Postcards 9/11 memorial on the waterfront, and the S40 bus to Snug Harbor.
If you have three hours rather than one, get on the bus.
Getting there
To the Manhattan terminal at Whitehall: the 1 to South Ferry, the R or W to Whitehall Street, or the 4 or 5 to Bowling Green.
Boats run every 15 to 30 minutes around the clock, more often at rush hour. There is no schedule to plan around — turn up and wait a few minutes.
On the Staten Island side you arrive at St. George, where the buses and the Staten Island Railway leave from the terminal.
Getting around once you're there
Both terminals and the boats are step-free with lifts, and the crossing is smooth. Whitehall Street and Bowling Green are accessible stations; South Ferry is too. This is one of the most accessible attractions in the city.
Nearby
In these guides
- One day on Staten Island, starting with the free ferry
- Free things to do in New York City
- Free things to do on Staten Island
- St. George: the Staten Island ferry terminal and what's around it
- New York in summer: beaches, free concerts and how to survive the heat
- New York in winter: the museums, the free skating and the empty parks