Traditionally when you think of going to the USA from Australia most people think of getting across the Pacific to LA and then on to other cities from there.
LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) is horrid. Last year (and the last time I was there) it took me 4 hours to get through Customs and I barely made my connection to NYC. The staff were horrendous – rude, yelling, disorganised. After a 14 hour flight with another 6 hour flight coming up, standing in a line and being yelled at for 4 hours is just not my cup of tea.
Thankfully there are loads more options to get to New York without going through LAX! If you want to fly to the USA then connect across to New York, you can now easily get to San Francisco or Dallas from Australia. I’ve done both of these connections and they are both way better than the LA option. Dallas was busier but I broke the trip up with a night at the Airport hotel which is literally just near the check in counters so very convenient to grab your connecting flight the next day. San Francisco is fabulous – it’s a smaller and quieter airport and the lines are so quick which makes it my pick of the US airports to fly into to connect through to New York (and vice versa on the return trip).
There are 3 major airports in New York (JFK, Newark and La Guardia). I’ve been in and out of all 3 and probably Newark was a little nicer and quieter than the others, but honestly none of them are very flash so if you can get a good flight route don’t worry too much about which airport you will arrive in. There are easy transport options from any of the airports (I’ll cover that in another blog post)
There are a heap of options that will get you to New York without connecting through any other US cities and I’ve listed a few below. We had a lightning fast customs and entry experience going into JFK directly, literally 20 minutes from getting off the plane to getting into a cab. I know it might not be like this all the time but several other family members arrived at different times to us and it was still way quicker than LA has ever been.
Note some of these routes are longer flying times, but adding in waiting times and internal connections in Aus and/or the US for other more “direct” flights, these are all really valid options.
- Via Honolulu – technically of course this is another US connection but is theoretically a whole lot closer and makes the connection more of a halfway point. I’ve only done this once and won’t do it again. The customs experience coming in was atrocious and the checking in experience on the return was even more atrocious. But that could have just been me, you can give it a try 🙂
- Via Japan. We did this route on my last trip and loved it. We did break it up overnight in Tokyo but you can easily get connections right through as there are several flights a day from Haneda to JFK and return.
- Via Hong Kong. This is how I’m going on my next trip. I’m booked on Cathay from Australia to Hong Kong then a short stopover for a direct flight Hong Kong – JFK. I’ll let you know how that goes!
- Via China. My daughter has done this one, from Brisbane to GuangZhou with China Southern, then GuangZhou to JFK. Everything was smooth and she said she had the best dumplings ever on the plane!
- Via Doha. Both my kids have done this one and I’ll be returning this way on my next trip. Longer flying time but easy connections and great service on Qatar. They have several flights a day between Doha and JFK so it’s easy to find good connections for flights to and from Australia.
- Via Dubai. Emirates flies directly from Dubai to NYC and has lots of connections from Australia to Dubai to make this an easy route.
- Via Singapore. Easy for Aussies to get themselves to Singapore any time and Singapore Airlines fly direct Singapore to New York (currently the longest non stop flight in the world!)
- Via Vancouver. Air Canada have direct flights from Aus into Vancouver then connections from Vancouver to Newark. At the time of writing this you do require transit visas both ways to be in Canada, even if it’s a connecting flight and you are just waiting in transit for 2 hours.
- Via Auckland. One of the longest flights in the world is the Auckland to New York one but considering how easy it is for Aussies to get to Auckland, this is definitely worth considering. I haven’t done this one yet but I hear you’ll either love it or hate it. Personally once I’m on the plane I’d just rather keep going so I think this will suit me. My daughter is booked on this one coming from NYC in a few months time so I’ll get some more feedback from her once she’s here.
There are plenty of other ways to get to New York with 3+ flights which could even be a quicker journey, but I just wanted to give you some options that don’t require the traditional LAX transfer. Often these less popular routes will work out cheaper with more seat availability as well.
If you want some help thinking about how best to get yourself to New York, shoot me an email here
Happy travels!
