CAP Beauty has reached a cult-like status amongst New Yorkers who try to live their lives a little more like Gwyneth Paltrow, and a little less like Lindsay Lohan circa 2007. But you don’t have to be a health nut to appreciate the natural beauty store’s mission to bring a carefully selected range of products and brands that are actually kind to our bodies to consumers.

A legendary basketball court in the West Village that is a popular destination for basketball aficionados, deflated hoop-dreamers, and gawking tourists.

Corner bodega with the best chopped cheese. It will blow your mind.

A street party/DJ sound system built out of a shipping container. A little slab of hungover berlin/pregaming Berlin in Brooklyn. Whomever the great DJs in town are you will find them playing a low-key set here for a crowd of less than 50 people. Sunset is magic as there's a straight shot through to Manhattan and the light is perfection.

When I first moved to New York, enamoured by its parks and museums and design firms and restaurants and bars, I never imagined that there could be much more to its geography than that. How wrong I was. My first drive across the George Washington Bridge was jaw-dropping - the cliffs of New Jersey are astonishingly tall, covered in a dense thicket of trees. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Drive up 87 to the Catskills or the Adirondacks and you'll witness the Hudson River winding its way through spectacular scenery and unforgiving seasons. Now I can't get enough; just two hours up the road, it's like the city never existed. Perfect recuperation after a long week.