A few years ago I surprised my mom with a birthday trip to NYC. She had always wanted to both go to the City and see it at Christmastime. This worked out just perfectly since her birthday is in December!
Honestly, I had a pretty tight budget to stick to at the time (hello teacher salary), but I surprisingly had no trouble doing that. Thankfully, I was able to save lots of money on travel because we were able to stay at my aunt’s house in New Jersey and take the train into the city. We kept it at a day trip so we could visit with family while up North! Plus we took one of the earliest trains there and one of the latest train back so we really got in just as much time as we would have had we woken up there!