The Best Statue of Liberty Tour in New York City in 2025
"On the Take Walks Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour I met the group at 8:15am on the southern tip of Manhattan (14 of us plus our guide Nicola) and we were shepherded onto the ferry without waiting, which gave us an awesome view of the NYC skyline from a specially chosen spot. Our guide opened the vast Registry Room by saying “Welcome to the real door to America,” and I learned striking facts like the Registry Room processed up to 6,000 immigrants per day and over 12,000,000 people passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. Nicola—who amusingly said this was his 1,144th tour—was a wealth of information and dropped memorable details I’d never heard before: the Statue of Liberty was once considered for Battery Park and Central Park before being placed on Liberty Island so it wouldn’t be dwarfed by Manhattan’s future skyline; when the statue arrived from France in 1885 they still had to scramble to fund and design a pedestal (they chose the architect of the Metropolitan Museum of Art); and Ellis Island not only registered immigrants but screened them for disease with only a couple of doctors on staff at a time. After about 20 minutes on the ferry and a guided stroll around Liberty Island you get roughly 40 minutes on your own to visit the Statue of Liberty Museum, grab a coffee or bite in the cafeteria, and browse the gift shop. For me the tour was the perfect primer on immigration history and the statue itself—the statue appears to be marching toward the future—and while you can DIY for the price of admission ($31.50 USD), the deeper knowledge and context the guide provides made the Take Walks tour invaluable and well worth the extra cost; practical tips I’d give are to wear comfortable footwear (it’s at least a 4-hour outing), check the weather, avoid weekends if you can, and ask lots of questions because the guide is a real resource." - Matthew Kepnes
