50mm or 35mm lens for travel?

I'm going to New York city and plan to do some street and landscape photography. I have a Nikon D5100 and plan to bring 2 lenses. A 18-55 and buy either a 35mm or a 50mm, both with a high aperture. Which one would you recommend?

I'd go for the 35mm. For your camera it would be normal/standard. I would in fact may just bring that one lens and leave the kit lens behind. If budget is unconstrained, I'd go for a 24mm f/1.4 though for a wider angle. You can take more of what you see.

Neither.

Take your 18-55mm zoom - that gives you much more flexibility than a fixed focal length lens. And zoom range covers both 35 and 50mm, so you don't need either if you take the zoom.

Yes, a fixed focal length lens will be lighter in weight and faster than the zoom, but if you only take one lens, weight won't matter. And the automation in the D5100 will compensate for the minimum aperture in low light conditions.

I think you'll use the 35mm more, but I have to wonder if the extra stop or two will be worth the redundancy. (That depends on subjects and style, I guess).

Personally, I'd rather take a high-quality P&S to NY. It's more discreet.

Your kit lens already has both those focal lengths covered. Of course, the optics would be superior and the aperture wider in both the primes as opposed to the consumer zoom. 50mm is a great portrait lens on a crop sensor. The 35 would be like a 50mm on a full frame. Many of us learned photography on 35mm film using a 50mm standard lens. Do you use that focal length often?

I would find wide angle to be more use than a normal or short telephoto in landscape. The aperture does not matter so much because often landscape photography is done on a tripod using smaller apertures anyway.

At any rate, the 35mm would probably be more useful. Unless you plan on shooting lots of portraits you may find 50mm restrictive.

For landscape photography the 18mm end of your standard zoom will beat either of these lenses. If you were planning on shooting architecture on the city streets then I'd go further and get a wide zoom. As for street photography, on a crop sensor the common range will be something in the 30-40mm. Consider how much you actually need that high aperture for these types of shot, it's probably less than you think.

So a decent 18-55mm or similar lens actually covers a great deal of what you need.