Geek visiting New York? Here’s the schtick. You  get off the plane,  pay $60 for a Downtown cab ride which you suspect is excessive (you’re right), checkin and then walk out of the hotel, don’t want to take a cab again and you have no idea how the subway works, so you walk around, get lost after a couple of blocks, ask  for directions, get a blank stare and a head-to-toe ‘onceover’ which basically means ”Where do all these people come from?”

Right. Welcome to New York, and you’re all alone in a city with over 8 million people. Pathetic day so far, and perfectly normal for a geek. But today happens to be your lucky day, because I’m about to give you a free guided geek tour of New York City. Before we start hitting the streets, you should know that its best to know where you are, relative to wi-fi enabled spots, like Central Park and the nearest Starbucks. So you can map out a route which tracks both your intended destinations and all the wi-fi spots along the way.

Robot Village: Doesn’t get geekier than this. Anything and everything you’d need if you’re interested in robots. That’s Robot Village in the Upper West Side, where they have ‘bot building stations’ where you can build your own robot. You can buy a robot, you can buy books on robots, you can buy spare parts & accessories for robots, and you can attend or organize robot building parties, events and workshops. Let’s just say that if it needs electricity and moves, you can find it at Robot Village. Photo Credit - Ruth Fremson/The New York Times.

Info: 252 West 81st Street, New York, NY 10024; (212) 799-7626; info@robotvillage.com; Directions:- Subway: Take the #1 subway to 79th street. Walk 2 blocks North on Broadway to 81st Street.  Make left on 81st (between Broadway & West End Ave.); Bus: Take the M79 cross-town bus to Broadway (you’ll be on on 79th Street). Walk 2 blocks North on Broadway to 81st Street.  Make left on 81st  (between Broadway & West End Ave.)

Metronaps: Call it the perfect touristy option for geeks in NYC, but Metronaps provides you with an excuse to participate in regular ‘touristy’ options. It might otherwise be yucky for a geek to be caught snapping pics of the Empire State Building or wondering if you can say ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ aloud (don’t). The ergonomic pods at Metronaps provide you with 20 minutes of futuristic sleep in a dark room enhanced by the vibrations, the powerful but gentle hum of Bose speakers and a lemon scented washcloth that will totally knock you out just as the 20 minutes are up and you’re yanked out of your alternate reality. When you get out of the seat, and look around you, you’ll feel like one of Godzilla’s eggs hatching out of your shell in Madison Square Garden. BTW, it costs you $14. Worth it, I’d say, if only because you can say that you fell asleep on the 24th floor of the Empire State Building.

Info: Empire State Building Suite 2210, 350 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10118; (212) 239-3344  

Hayden Planetorium, Rose Center for Earth and Space: Walk through 13 billion years of cosmic evolution, watch the birth of the universe with a re-creation of the Big Bang, massive cosmic collisions and virtual reality space simulations with a customized Zeiss Mark IX star projector which can project over 9100 stars, along with a tour of the surface of any object in the solar system, on to the dome. For space junkies, there isn’t a better place to fulfill and indulge your fantasies. The Planetorium is located in the American Museum of Natural History. Info: American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street New York, NY 10024; (212) 769-5100; FAQ 

And then there’s New York’s ‘blogger bars’. It’s not like they hold any blogger get-togethers or some thing. Just that some bars and restaurants just sort of started getting famous as hang-outs where bloggers hang around, so to speak. So if you want to talk to a few NYC bloggers, and make friends with some of them, then you have to hit these bars.

The Magician - 118 Rivington St New York NY 10002; (212) 673-7881

Max Fish - 178 Ludlow St New York, NY 10002; (212) 253-1922

Loreley - 7  Rivington St New York, NY 10002; (212) 253-7077

Von - 3 Bleecker St New York, NY 10012; (212) 473-3039

Tom & Jerry’s (288 Bar) - 288 Elizabeth St New York, NY 10012; (212) 260-5045

There’s lots more, but tell you what. If you hang out with some of the people you find in these places, you won’t be needing this guide any time soon.