Free ferry to see the Statue of Liberty

Do you want to see the Statue of Liberty for free? Did you hear about the free Staten Island Ferry and want to know if it would get you in a good view of the Statue of Liberty? The good news is that you can see the Statue of Liberty for free with the Staten Island Ferry, but the bad news is that it will not be up close. It is still a fun experience and a great alternative to chartering a boat if you are unable to get tickets.

We arrived at Battery Park too late and the line for a charter boat that would take us directly to Liberty Island was super long and directly in the sun. Neither of us felt like it was worth it to us at the time, so we decided to see the Statue of Liberty for free using the Staten Island Ferry.

The entrance for the Staten Island Ferry is very close (walking distance) to where you would be able to charter a boat to Liberty Island. The waiting area is air conditioned. It has free WiFi, very limited seating and a snack bar. A ferry departs every thirty minutes, 24 hours a day.

You can see the Statue of Liberty for free with the Staten Island Ferry, but it will not be up close. Find out exactly what it is like.

But what is the experience like? It is worth it to see the Statue of Liberty for free by using the Staten Island ferry? I will leave that up for you to decide. I took a lot of photos to show you exactly what it is like.

Firstly, you will want to make sure you are in the right side of the ship when leaving from Manhattan and the left side of the ship when leaving front Staten Island. We did this in July on a week day in the afternoon and there were a lot of people. Even still, it was easy to find room to see the Statue of Liberty.

So what is the view like? The photo below is completely unedited. I took it as we passed by the Statue of Liberty. It is small, isn’t it? I wanted to show you exactly what your phone photos will look like. As you can see from the other photos in this post, they do clean up fairly well when edited. I took every photo in this post with my iPhone.

View of the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry

There are a lot of people! You could encounter a crowd like this:

The windows were the most crowded on the trip to Staten Island There were available seats, but many people wanted to see the view.

Even with that large crowd, I was able to take several photos and have a relatively good view. There were less people standing near the windows on the way back:

What it looks like to ride the Staten Island Ferry — This was taken on a weekday in July around 3pm. It was crowded, but not difficult getting a spot by the window.

If you take the Staten Island ferry, it might be tempting to just stay on the ship because you are going back anyway. Unfortunately, everyone must completely empty the ferry. If you exit quickly, you can jump back in line to get back on the ferry before it departs.

You can get an amazing view of Manhattan on your way back from Staten Island on the left side of the ferry. If you get a seat in the back of the ship when you first leave Manhattan, you can get this view more easily.

View of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry — iPhone photo. If you sit on the left side of the ferry on the return trip, you get this view.

So is it worth it to see the Statue of Liberty for free using the Staten Island Ferry? I was happy with it and would do it again with my kids. While it would have been nice to take a charter boat to the Island itself, we were unable to, so this was a great alternative. The view was distant, but it was still much better than I could see from land. It seemed closer in real life than what the photos show, but it was still quite far away. The ferry ride itself was fun and it was super cool seeing the view of Manhattan. I am very glad that we tried the Staten Island Ferry.

Want to take great travel photos? Check out my guide to getting started with cell phone photography.