Where to spend Thanksgiving: Parades, restaurants and more in New York, New Orleans and Miami

Join in the festivities, or slope off for some sightseeing instead

Last year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York (Getty)

Each week, The Independent’s travel team go head to head to see who can come up with the best version of a particular trip. Today we’re tackling a short break to the US for Thanksgiving on 24 November.

Simon’s choice: Beach time in Miami
Price per person: £582

In my experience, the American celebration of Thanksgiving is akin to the way the British mark Christmas, as a family event that sees stores and restaurants closed and streets empty. It is, though, an interesting cultural event — especially with the retail eruption that takes place over the weekend following the fourth Thursday in November.

My advice is to fly early on Thanksgiving Day itself, when flights tend to be cheap and empty, and return overnight on Sunday. No doubt about the best destination for such a venture: Miami Beach, which will be warm and wonderful even at the tail end of November. The flights work a treat, with an early departure (9am) from Heathrow on 24 November, and arrival in Miami at a quiet time (1.50pm) when there’s plenty of daylight to explore South Beach. Accommodation is at the smart and central Harrison Hotel, and even includes continental breakfast. All for £582 per person with British Airways Holidays – annoyingly less than the air-fare alone for my trip to Florida last week. Just one potential hiccup: to get this price, you need to fly back on 27 November aboard American Airlines rather than BA, which means you lose your entitlements under European passenger-rights rules.

Simon Calder, Travel Correspondent

Nicola’s choice: Dine out in New Orleans
Price per person: £979

New Orleans is renowned for its party spirit, and while it’s worth a visit during Mardi Gras in February, or the jazz festival in April-May, Thanksgiving is yet another excuse for a good time in the Big Easy.

Follow the Bayou Classic Thanksgiving Day Parade from the Superdome, through the French Quarter, to the French Market, before sloping off for a taste of turkey. You’ll need to book ahead, but there are plenty of options. If you’re in luck, you might even find somewhere serving a turducken: a Cajun creation consisting of a chicken cooked inside a duck inside a turkey. Sounds obscene, but who are we to argue?

Expedia is offering a package for £979 per person, which includes room-only at the Sheraton New Orleans and one-stop American Airlines flights from Heathrow, departing 23 November. The return is on 27 November, landing in London at 7.50am the following day, so you can head straight into work – if you’re not still in a turkey coma.

Nicola Trup, Head of Travel

Laura’s choice: A twist on tradition in NYC
Price per person: £620

Thanksgiving is a very “stay at home” holiday for Americans; it’s the one time of year everyone is expected to dutifully fly home in spite of their terrible annual leave allowances, eat turkey, play board games and reignite old family feuds. With that in mind, if you want to find somewhere “happening” on Thanksgiving, it has to be New York City.

Thanksgiving kicks off in the Big Apple at 9am with a huge holiday tradition, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Make the most of the free entertainment and take to the pavements to watch this all-American procession of floats, giant balloons and cheerleaders, which dates all the way back to 1924.

Food is the primary focus of Thanksgiving, so good thing you’re in a city with arguably the richest food culture in the United States. Plenty of restaurants do fixed Thanksgiving menus if you want a taste of tradition, though they’ll be pricey. Personally, I would prefer to head to one of the city’s Chinatowns, where restaurants remain open, and enjoy a budget feast – Flushing in Queens has a boggling array of cheap restaurants serving everything from Muslim-Chinese lamb chops (at Fu Run, 40-09 Prince Street) to Peking duck buns at Corner 28 (137-28 40th Road).

You’ll also have the dubious pleasure of Black Friday in one of the world’s best-known shopping destinations. To give you a sense of that frenzy, Macy’s opens at 3am on the Friday morning and there’ll already be lines.

Fly out on the Wednesday night and back on the Sunday and you’ll have plenty of time to see the city’s best sights after Thanksgiving (check out our latest 48 hours guide). If you’re feeling really ambitious, you could even take a day trip from Grand Central to see the autumn colours Upstate before they fade with the onset of winter.

Lastminute.com currently has a deal for these dates that includes return flights and a double room at the budget Royal Park Hotel on the Upper West Side for £620 per person.

Laura Chubb, Deputy Head of Travel

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