Washington D.C. Travel Forum

I'd like to take the family to Washington DC this year. Trying to figure out if a 5-6 day trip (with an extra couple of days reserved for driving from New Hampshire) will be too long. Is there enough to do or is a 3-4 day trip better? I realize this is highly subjective and people will have all different kinds of answers, so I'm just looking for opinions. Our kids are ages 10 and 13, both boys.

The other consideration is that if a 3-4 day stay in DC is long enough, we might just do it over Memorial Day weekend (would have to take the kids out of school for an extra couple of days) in order to beat the summer heat. After Memorial Day weekend, the earliest we could go would be late June, going into the first week of July.

Thanks

Hi - it depends on what you'd like to do. The Smithsonian Museums are great (and free!) - the American Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Natural History and the Air & Space Museum are popular. The boys might not be interested in the Smithsonian Zoo no matter how adorable the pandas are. They might enjoy the Bureau of Printing and Engraving (no free $$ samples) and the Spy Museum. You can go to the top of the Washington Monument, visit the Capitol and White House. The hop on/hop off buses make the rounds to the above mentioned as well as Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, Vietnam Wall, Arlington. You probably could do it all in 4 full days. Enjoy!

I don't know what you are interests are but it would 3 or 4 days just to see the Smithsonian museums and the zoo. Then there are the monuments, tour of various government buildings (the postal museum is pretty cool for kids that age). The length you have chosen will give you a taste, but as you said, it is a subjective opinion as I live here. One word of caution about doing it Memorial Day Weekend is that the crowds will be extreme since it will be the first warm days vacation time off of the season in the area. Therefore, many people will have the same idea as you.

I have OCD when it comes to visiting museums and monuments, but even I would be tired of both after about four days. If that's ALL you intend to do, then you would probably not need to be there any longer. If you intend to spend more than four days, I would suggest using some days for biking, hiking, or boating in nearby recreational areas.

If you go during the Memorial Day Weekend, be prepared for monster crowds. Personally, I would prefer summer heat to MDW crowds.

And, not to be nasty, but I have to say it: if you're taking your kids to see monuments to various people, make certain you can explain WHY we made monuments to them. If a child visits the Jefferson Memorial and just remembers a big statue, the value of the memorial is lost.

Here's info on visiting the White House, the inside of which you will NOT be able to tour:
www.whitehouse.gov/history/tours

It will be a little crowded that weekend, but not that bad. Depending on your boys interests, it could easily take a day at each Smithsonian museum.

DC is my hometown, even though I live far away now. In my opinion, the best way to see the monuments is after dark. There are less crowds and they look.. I dont know.. more regal?

As others have said, just the museums could easily take up that much time. But then there is also Alexandria, Va which is accessible with the DC Metro card, easily taking up another day, tho old canal near Georgetown and the zoo. The greatest thing is that most things are free.

PR-7 is not entirely correct, the White House is again open for tours. I had a couple of friends go on a tour just 3 weeks ago; it has to be arranged by your congressman at least a month in advance of your requested tour date and there must be at least 10 people in your party, but you do get to go inside.

Thanks for all the great responses. I have a follow-up question. We'll be driving down there but we have been told not to expect to get around to all the tourist sites by car, and that's fine with me. My plan was to use the subway/trains system (I guess it's called the Metro down there), but I am also finding that all the hotels within walking distance of the Metro stations are very expensive. So - here's the question, finally: if I get in a hotel that's 5 miles or so from one of the Smithsonian museums (for example), can I drive to a Metro station, park there, and just use the Metro for the day?

Location location location. Of course any hotel that is at or near a metro stop is going to be more expensive than others. In answer to your question about metro parking, yes you can. However, as others will agree with me here, the days that you are coming, the metro parking garages and lots will fill up rapidly. There are also parking garages located throughout the city due to Washington's notorious parking problems. Since you plan on using the metro anyway, you may want to consider checking hotels a particular radius from an easy accessibnle metro stop than using the city center as a radius. You may find that your hotel price will drop considerably.

Good plan. Try to look for hotels not far from one of the outer metro stops and you've got access to the whole city for the price of a metro card for each member of the family and no worries about parking in the city. Sometimes the hotels around Reagan Airport have good rates as well as those around King St metro stop in Alexandria.

Thanks again for more great responses. I'm pretty much ready to accept the fact that I'll have to pay for convenience if I want to be within walking distance of a Metro stop. Some of the hotels offer shuttle service to the Metro stations so that's another consideration. In the end, like any vacation planning, it'll just be a process of figuring out all the pros and cons of particular hotels and coming out with a good balance of price vs. convenience. Most likely we will be going in late June, right after the kids are done with school which I believe is either 6/23 or 6/24 (the Memorial Day option was more of a fleeting thought!).

Olddude - I had to laugh when I clicked on your profile and found that you are less than 1 year older than me. I guess that makes me an old dude, too. ;-)

Don't limit your research to just D.C.- many of the places you are probably interested in my really be in VA or MD. Baltimore's Inner Harbor, ball park, aquarium, shops, water taxi to Fell's Point, etc are only an hour away. If you are interested in Civil War History, there are many sites nearby, including Manassas. Historic Fredericksburg- in fact many of the sites for the Civil War are within day trip distance. You've got all the monuments, and I could spend days in the various Smithsonian museums- boys might particularly enjoy the air and space and natural history museums. You could always venture a little further south to Williamsburg- fantastic interactive history, not to mention Bush Gardens amusement park and Water Country.

Virgina State Parks are usually a good place to run off some energy, and there is a passport program where kids get stamps from different parks. The Shenandoah Parkway is nearby, and the caverns of Luray make a nice trip. The Battle of New Market (Civil War) might be of particular interest to your boys, becoz cadets from VMI in Lexington marched there to fight- some as young as 12, and most only teenagers and disabled instructors.

Hope this helps- contact me if I can provide further info- I used to work in Virginia tourism.