JFK to Penn Station

When I was planning my trip to New Jersey I'd planned on taking the train from JFK down to the beach. The hard part was always in getting from JFK to Manhattan. I've done the Penn Station to the Shore run a few times and never had any trouble but my family was concerned about how that would work out and in the wake of the London bombings I would up using alternative transportation (that led to two trips over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge which I'd been under, but never over).

I figured I'd write up something about the JFK AirTrain system anyway (I'd looked into it a bit) for those who are looking for this kind of thing when I found the article on Wikipedia that sums up the AirTrain quite a bit better than the official AirTrain site. Even my lingering question about the required MetroCard value is answered, a basic $5 card seems to do it.

Things are relatively straight forward once you reach Jamaica Station. The Port Authority site mentions two possibilities; either a Long Island Rail Road train or the E subway to Penn Station. The train sounds easiest, leaving about every ten to fifteen minutes (in the afternoon) and taking slightly more than twenty minutes to get to Penn Station. If you are headed somewhere in Jersey, NJ Transit handles the rest of it using the same basic routes and methods that have been in place for all my life.

It was pretty weird how little I knew about Long Island. Until recently I had JFK and La Guardia backwards in my mind for some reason. When I mentioned that to one of my aunts, she giggled. I was once interested in a girl who lived out near Port Washington and figured out how to get there, but that was a long, long time ago. I was onboard for several fishing trips out to the vicinity of Fire Island, but all that told me was how to get to the middle of the Island from New Jersey via the water. I was also party to a fall surfing trip to a cove out near Montauk (good waves as I recall) but all I remember now are basic directions; north to the city, hang a right and drive until land ends, look for a southwest facing cove.

The last few weeks have helped my knowledge of Queens and how it connects to the rest of the island considerably.