This is a 3-hour tour that begins with a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, an icon of New York City for over 125 years, with spectacular views of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
ExcelenteFree Tours a pie4.9★★★★★ Basado en 2383 reseñas deVer todos los comentarios danos tu opinión enPasquale S. ★★★★★ My guide was John Gallagher, who toured us in Little Italy, Soho, Chinatown. We had a beautiful experience, John was interesting and entertaining, and also managed to deal with politeness and savoir faire with an annoying lady who disturbed us while we were visiting Soho. The only thing I would change is that I would have liked to walk longer (the tour has many short stops so you don't walk that much), but I guess it's very subjective.Very Recommended!Gucci G. ★★★★★ Great tour with a lovely guide. We had so much fun exploring Brooklyn Bridge and Dumbo!Robert S. ★★★★★ John was an amazing guide in our Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown tour.Remington B. ★★★★★ Cannot state enough good things about Ryan and the Harlem walking tour. Signed up for this one hoping to see a bit of Harlem, and learn a bit about the area, but we were blown away by how much history Ryan shared. His passion for the Harlem area is evident and infectious. Tour was very educational and very enjoyable!Rita P. ★★★★★ Wir hatten in drei Tagen drei Touren gebucht: die erste ging mit Garett durch SoHo, China Town und Little Italy. Gerettet war unglaublich unterhaltsam, hatte Spaß an dem was er tut und uns sehr viel Geschichte aber auch Kurioses berichten können.Die beiden anderen Touren gingen mit Renee nach Brooklyn, DUMBO und Brooklyn Heights und am nächsten Tag furchtbar Greenwich Village.Renee hat ein unfassbares Wissen über historische Ereignisse und weiß diese mit Humor zu kombinieren. Man kann ihr sehr gut zuhören und es bleibt eine Menge (nicht alles) an Informationen hängen.Beide Tourguides haben neben ihren geschichtlichen Kenntnissen viele Geschichten über die besuchten Orte parat, ob es sich um Filmkulissen handelt oder auch, wo man die besten Dumplings in China Town oder die beste Pizza, Schokolade und/oder Eis, Cupcakes in Greenwich bekommt.Wir haben uns nicht eine einzige Sekunde der jeweiligen Tour gelangweilt sondern alles Wissen und die Geschichten aufgesogen.Klar ist: bei unserem nächsten NY Besuch werden wir auf jeden Fall wieder free tours by foot machen😁Victor ★★★★★ We had a fantastic time on John Gallagher's free tour, and it was a pleasant experience. He knows the area well and made exploring SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown a blast. From excellent shops in SoHo to tasty treats in Little Italy and the bustling vibe of Chinatown, John showed us all the best spots. Super friendly and full of fun facts, he made the tour feel like a walk with a friend who knows all the most incredible places. I recommend tagging along if you want to see NYC from a local's perspectiveGisele T. ★★★★★ John was our guide, April 13, 2024. I lived in New York and came with out of town friends. I learned so much during this visit on the town I thought I knew well! John is highly knowledgeable, a wealth of historical, architectural facts delivered with a plethora of anecdotes and good humor. Being on a budget this was an amazing option and John made that day one for my memories trunk!Holly N. ★★★★★ I had an amazing Brooklyn Bridge tour with Lori! She was friendly and knowledgeable, the tour was a good pace and had a lot of information without being overwhelming. I will definitely be booking a different tour the next time I am in town and would throughly recommend to anyone. Hopefully I'll get Lori again!Cassie C. ★★★★★ Lori was an awesome guide!! The SOHO, Little Italy and Chinatown walking tour was fun and full of great information!!! I highly recommend this tour with Lori!!Susan O. ★★★★★ This tour was great and Jon was a terrific guide. I highly recommended itAriela A. ★★★★★ The tour was informative educational clear and funny. Thanks to John Gallagher who made everything possible and giving us wonderful recommendations 👏👏👏Cathy S. ★★★★★ Went on the Lower East Side Food Tour with Jon. Very knowledgeable history buff. Enjoyed the tour, the food and the people on the tour were friendly!Anushree S. ★★★★★ The Brooklyn Bridge walking tour was so incredible! Learning the history behind how it was built, and New York’s architecture was so interesting to me. John was an incredible tour guide and he really made the whole experience engrossing. I would recommend the morning walking tour 🙂Julie W. ★★★★★ We were on the Harlem and Grand Central Station tours. Both were excellent. Would highly recommend Free Tours by Foot.Nuno Tiago Pires dos Santos P. ★★★★★ Renée was a wonderful tour guide. Recommend the tour very muchU R. ★★★★★ We had an absolutely fantastic morning with Lori walking from City Hall Park over Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO and then Brooklyn Heights. Lori has so much historical knowledge and great storytelling ability so it was an absolutely lovely way to spend a few hours in New York. Highly recommend!Fergus D. ★★★★★ A very high quality tour with excellent levels of insight and an appropriate but entertaining delivery from the guide, who seemed to know every other person in the neighbourhood. One of the highlights of the ten busy tourist days I’ve spent in NYC.Jen B. ★★★★★ We had a great walking tour of the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Hts, DUMBO and the area. John Gallagher was funny and engaging, and his anecdotes enhanced the experience. My teenagers even had fun. His recommendations for dinner were also great.Melissa W. ★★★★★ Had a Brooklyn Bridge tour today with Katie. She was brilliant. Utterly miserable weather, raining and cold, but Katie was energetic, interesting and super informative.We went with a 9 and 13 year old and they didn’t complain at all (except about the rain, which Katie had no control over!)Highly recommend! Thanks so much Katie.Domenic S. ★★★★★ John was a fantastic tour guide - we had a great tour, learned so much and had a lot of fun. Thanks John, especially for making it so enjoyable for our kids too!Christian A. ★★★★★ HiMy tour with Jon was exceptional.Jon is knowledgeable and picked fabulous eating establishments with a rich history and delicious tasting tidbits. The split pea soup at Cozis was to die for. I went back for dinner that night for a full bowl. The Ukrainian kitchen was quirky and fun and the Cabbage rolls were super delicious.The Brooklyn dumplings were delicious and the finale, a dessert cafe had the richest yummist Cannoli.Jons knowledge ie the history, culture and choice of venues in East Village was top notch.Jon was kind enough to share his mobile if we had and further queries (which I did) about places to see or eat and he answered my texts immediately.Jon was a sensational tour guide. 10/10.When I’m back in NY again from Australia I’ll be doing another of his tours!Marzena ★★★★★ I had a tour (Chinatown, Little Italy etc.) with Jon - absolutely perfect! Jon's enthusiasm, fascinating stories and his sense of humour just made to me the NYC really "alive"! Hope to repeat a tour guided by Jon!Pa Q ★★★★★ We’re native NY’ers who love being tourists in our own city; there’s so much to see and learn. We took the Meatpacking District tour and had the pleasure of having Ron as our tour guide. We walked through the Highline, visited Little Island, and learned fun historical facts about the neighborhood, including Ron’s own stories about celebrities that grew up in the area. So glad we took the tour. Be sure to tip generously for your tour guide. They work hard to make your tour fun and personalized.Thanks again, Ron. We will see you on the Harlem tour.Anna M. ★★★★★ Had a great tour with Lori as a guide. She introduced us to some of Greenwhich village best food and dessert spots. Definitely would recommend!Ayla G. ★★★★★ I really enjoyed the tour. Garret told really interesting storys and kept us engaged for six hours which is pretty incredibleKathy F. ★★★★★ Tour of Brooklyn with John Gallagher was amazing! Very knowledgeable and friendly guide. Followed up with a group photo and tips on where to eat in NYC.Jessa F. ★★★★★ Jon, our tour guide for the walking food tour of Chinatown and Little Italy, did amazing! He was very descriptive and did great about explaining the food we were going to eat at the beginning of the tour. He also made sure everyone was present after we ate at each place. I would definitely go to him again!Victorious Word M. ★★★★★ We took New York Little Italy walking tour with Jon and Jon exceeded our expectations of an excellent tour guide. Jon is very knowledgeable about history, New York in general and this particular route. Jon delivered this tour featuring interesting facts, appropriate jokes and humor, and perfect verbal delivery (100% no repetitive words such as "like” or ”you know”, which is very important to fully enjoy the tour). At any given moment he knew where is each member of his group, he watched the speed of walking and was mindful of everyone's safety. Jon is very nice, polite, relatable and thoughtful. We are greatly impressed and enjoyed it so much! Thank you!Evghenia B. ★★★★★ We had such an amazing experience with Meredith on the Brooklyn bridge tour. Thank you, Meredith, for sharing your knowledge about NY with us!Patricia Anne C. ★★★★★ Entertaining and very informative tour. John was a fantastic guide. Highly recommend.Miriam L. ★★★★★ John was awesome during our Grand Central tour! His knowledge of the building and the area was exceptional.We will definitely take another tour with John in the future!Lyudmila A. ★★★★★ Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights & DUMBO. We had a wonderful time touring Brooklyn Bridge, Heights and Dumbo.. John, our guide, was excellent and knowledgeable. We learned so much from John the history of this area, architecture and had a lot of suggestions for great food and site seeing. If you want to discover more about Brooklyn i very recommended have this tour with John. Much thanks to John!Miguel de la O ★★★★★ Took a tour of Grand Central Station with John and of lower Manhattan with Renee. Learned all about Grand Central, the surrounding area, and the history of NYC. Highly recommend these tours!Celeste F. ★★★★★ John has been a delightful tour guide of New York City.My husband and myself got an amazing time being taught about NYC history, architecture, urbane design, and curious facts. Mister Gallagher was both, a fantastic and engaging storyteller as well as a city savvy.Thanks for all the tips, and for showing around the city you’ve resided for some many years.Big pleasure!Celeste and GustavoTerra R. ★★★★★ We have such an amazing tour guide-Garrett-which gave historical insight to the city of New York. I love his enthusiasm and energy. My family and I booked this tour with hopes of learning about particular sites such as the 911 Memorial, China Town and Little Italy, but learned so much more. Being an Army veteran, I was emotional when we went to the 911 memorial because I served in the Operation Iraqi Freedom. He embraced that and gave me a chance to share my story with the group. Garrett kept the tour interesting and loved the red umbrella idea which kept us all from getting lost. We had a great time.Joanna and Glen A. ★★★★★ We booked a full day NYC walking tour for March break, and were SO thrilled to have had Garrett show us around the city. He was amazing - we loved his personality and depth of insight about NY. He made the tour better than we could ever have imagined! Thank you!Ryan W. ★★★★★ Renee was a fanatic guide, highly recommend taking the Greenwich Village tour!Marla S. ★★★★★ The Harlem tour with Ron was great. The tour was well paced and interesting. Ron has an obvious love for the neighborhood and shared his stories with enthusiasm. It was a great introduction to a part of the city that was unfamiliar to us.Anne R. ★★★★★ Great tour with John in Brooklyn, thank you!shirley E. ★★★★★ We came to NYC for my birthday and took the 6hr tour of NY with Garrett. We have taken walking tours all over Europe and I can say that Garrett was among the top tour guides we have had. He was full of wonderful information and stories and gave the tour a wonderful flavor of NYC. He made my birthday extra special. I am so glad that we took the tour with him,Julie C. ★★★★★ We did the full day NYC tour with Garrett and he was amazing. The tour is loaded with information and Garrett did a great job of sharing information and adding personal insights. The pace was great and accommodating for the entire group. I highly recommend this tour, especially if you can get an amazing guide like Garrett!Emil A. ★★★★★ great soho. little italy and china town tour with John.really funny and nice, and addon bonus we went for 2 good places to eat, one in little italy and the second in china townFiona W. ★★★★★ We had a lovely, almost private tour with only 4 people in the group. John was full of info, with some tasty side notes thrown into the mix too. Highly recommend doing this tour, it's a fun and informative 2 hours of your day.Anthony J. ★★★★★ John was an excellent guide. Very friendly and knowledgeable!Emelia C. ★★★★★ John was absolutely amazing on our Chinatown/ Little Italy/ Soho tour!! There were so many new things that I learned, John makes you appreciate New York City way more than I thought I ever could! My friends and I will 100% be returning and will do a John tour again.Teagan K. ★★★★★ I did a tour with John Gallagher a year and a half ago, and I knew I had to do another one when my friends came with this time! We did the Wall st, 9/11, Soho, Chinatown and Little Italy tour and it was amazing! He is so informative, kind and hilarious. We learned and laughed a lot got to experience the churches and he recommended the best restaurants! I will do a tour with him each time in New York because he makes such an amazing experience!Evan L. ★★★★★ Took three tours with FTBF during my time in NYC: East Village food w/Jon, Little Italy/Chinatown food w/Kathleen, and NY in one day with Garrett. All were amazing experiences!Jon's East Village food tour really gives you the local flavor of the area, the portions are small but just enough for a taste of various things. You can also pay a little more for extra samples of things if you'd like. Also, food bought on the tour is a bit cheaper than just walking in off the street, so it's well worth it. Jon has a great way of sharing the history of the area which is engaging.Kathleen's food tour through Chinatown and Little Italy was filled with yummy food and lots of history. This was probably the most detailed tour, as Kathleen provides unique perspective on the area and the history behind each stop. The food was really good and she makes sure everyone is taken care of! What I appreciated about her is how she related the historical pieces to the city as a whole and described where the city is currently which was really interesting to learn about.Garrett's full day NYC tour is not to be missed. The tour has a bit of a feeling of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka as Garrett brings such high energy, humor, and fun to the day. His great personality enhances the very fascinating history he covers at each stop. Most stops are brief but there is plenty of time to take in the scenery. Especially poignant is his first hand stories about 9/11 and the many stories of heroism and tragedy that day. He'll make you laugh, cry, and truly enjoy the big apple as you tour from Wall St. to Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District. A wonderful tour.One final note, the guides are all really good about not being pushy about what to donate for each tour, but with the high quality of each one these experiences are priceless! Be sure to take care of your guides at the end!Jodie H. ★★★★★ A group of 4 of us did the china town and little italy food tour, it was fantastic. The guide was very knowledgeable and passionate. The food was cheap and delicious, you bought what you wanted from the places you were taken too. The recommendations were perfect, we tried dumplings and pizza, plus much more. Me and my husband and I go back this year, and we are booked on to the east village food tour and Greenwich village food tour.Laurel W. ★★★★★ Absolutely wonderful tour of Grand Central Station!John was extremely knowledgeable and a lot of fun. Thanks!Maja E. ★★★★★ I’ve done three tours with this company since moving to New York: Lower East Side food tour with Kathleen, Brooklyn Bridge/Brooklyn Heights/Dumbo with Onel and Soho/Little Italy/Chinatown with John. All have been great experiences with knowledgeable and kind guides who truly love the city! My son (11) joined the food tour and my daughter (12) the two other ones and they loved it as well! Highly recommend!
The tour then moves on to a stroll of Brooklyn Heights, America’s and New York City’s first suburb.
The tour then explores the neighborhood DUMBO before ending at the Fulton Ferry landing.
Brooklyn Bridge
The tour begins at the fountain inside City Hall Park in Manhattan. It’s a full mile (1.6 km) across the bridge.
But, we will be making plenty of stops to talk about the history and design of the bridge and to have the opportunity to capture scenic photographs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New York Harbor.
Before you read our top ten, consider listening to an episode of our NYC Travel Tips podcast that covers the Brooklyn Bridge.
This podcast offers bite-sized audio clips with tips on how to plan your trip to NYC. You can get our podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Brooklyn Heights
The bridge lets out in Brooklyn’s finest residential neighborhoods, filled with interesting people and architecture.
Nicknamed America’s first suburb, Brooklyn Heights will certainly amaze.
Learn about George Washington’s doomed stand against British marines and walk past the homes of Truman Capote, Arthur Miller, and Norman Mailer.
Last but not least, we will visit the promenade for arguably the best views of Manhattan and New York Harbor.
DUMBO
From the promenade, we will walk down to the ferry landing area and explore a small part of DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass).
Once a manufacturing and industrial district, economic change sapped the area of its economic strength, leaving large and vacant factory lofts as attractive destinations for artists starving for large and affordable living space.
The neighborhood's unique urban landscape is partially the result of being below two bridges, an interesting sight to see.
Duración: Approximately 3 hours. Tour distance is approximately 2.5 miles (4 km).
BOOKING NOTES:
You will not have time to do this 3 hour morning tour and an afternoon tour at 1pm.
You will have very limited time to do this 3 hour morning tour and an afternoon tour at 2 pm - it will require no sit-down lunch and immediate travel from one tour to the other.
This tour route uses stairs. Please notify your guide if you cannot use stairs so the guide can plan a reroute to accommodate your needs.
This tour covers Brooklyn Heights so you do not need to book that tour as well!
Start point: Tour begins from the fountain in the center of City Hall Park (map).
Endpoint: Tour ends near the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn.
When: @9:30am Tuesdays through Sundays and our twilight version runs Sunday evenings (time dependent on the sunset) mid-March through Thanksgiving weekend.View Our Full Calendar.
*See additional planning section below for future potential seasonal scheduling.
Cost: This tour is free to take, and you get to decide what, if anything, the tour was worth when it's done. A name-your-own-price tour is a tour for anyone's budget.
Languages: Public tour is in English or Spanish only (see our Spanish tour page for calendar). Private tours for individual groups are also available in both languages upon request.
Additional planning information: You will NOT have time to do this 3 hour morning tour and an afternoon tour at 1 pm. You will have very limited time to take this 3 hour morning tour and an afternoon tour at 2 pm.
It will require no sit-down lunch and immediate travel from one tour to the other.
Tours go out rain, snow or shine. Dress appropriately for the weather.
GPS-LED AUDIO TOUR
Take this tour in our GPS-led audio tour app. It's actually 3 separate tours. Listen to the samples.
Sample of our Brooklyn Bridge Tour
Sample of our Brooklyn Heights Tour
Sample of our DUMBO Tour.
You'll need to download our free audio tour app. Downloads are only $1.99. Some tours are free.
Here is how it works:
Book a tour on our booking page above.
Receive a confirmation email with all the details.
Enjoy the tour(s).
Available Tours:
Central Park
Lower Manhattan
9/11 Memorial and World Trade Center
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Greenwich Village
Food Tour of Greenwich Village
SoHo
The Brooklyn Bridge (in English, Spanish, and German)
