united states

I bought this guide when I first moved to NYC 7 years ago. I carried it with me every day as I got to know my way around. I could be adventurous when I was armed with my "steetwise" map because I could walk wherever I wanted and I'd use the map to find the closest subway no matter where I wound up. I continued to carry it with me in my bag every day as long as I lived in New York because you never know when someone will invite you to some new place after work and you need to plan your course for the evening. This guide helps you move around like you're a native and its so small and light there's no reason not to have it with you always. Note: the first one I bought had a couple errors in the subway stops near Central Park on the B and D trains, but I bought another one a year later and found no errors on it. (Now that I've moved out of New York, I even feel nostalgic when I see my old "streetwise manhattan". It served me well.)

Lived there - loved it but I could have saved myself hours of wandering around lost with this in my pocket. Picked it up and reminisced about so many great neighborhoods and holes in the walls in Manhattan. It's a deliciously, culturally engaging place to visit but can be dauntingly intimidating if you're unfamiliar with the culture and lay out. Manhattan has it's own cadence and with this in your purse you can keep up and be confident you're headind in the right direction.

I'm in the process of moving to NYC, and as such have been visiting to try to get aquainted with the various neighborhoods, etc. I bought a variety of maps and tourist books to help me get around, and ths Streetwise Manahattan map was BY FAR the most useful (much better than the Lonely Planet New York map...).

I think the thing that makes it stand out more than Lonely Planet was how the subway stops were annotated with the specific subway lines that stop there, allowing you to plan your travel both above and under ground. Lonely Planet's map only indicates that there is a subway station, which is totally useless due to the variety of subway lines in NYC.