Travel Dates: June 24-27, 2023
Finally, a long weekend road trip getaway to explore this grand nation! Since moving to the US 3 months ago, we’ve been so busy settling in and exploring our neighbourhood that we haven’t had any time to do any road trips. This long weekend we finally decided to plan one and as our first American road trip, we chose to visit Washington, DC – the capital of the nation! I’ve been to DC a couple times in the past but this was Toby’s first time. He was more than excited to see all the famous buildings, but most importantly the Air and Space museum!
For our first time hiring a car in NY, Toby did a lot of research into finding the cheapest option for rental cars and settled on a small local shop. When we went to pick up the car the day before, it was less than ideal. The entire car had stains, scratches, and I swear the little holes in the seats looked like cigarette burns. I’d post pictures, but let’s not start off our happy weekend vacation blog on a bad note. Just believe that it was gross 🤮. It was so gross that I had to quickly Amazon cheap car seat covers and luckily had them delivered the same day in time for our trip (gotta love Prime). You can just see the car seat covers in the photo looped around the head rest 😂. It was a 4.5 hour drive to DC from our home in Brooklyn. Luckily Washington is a pretty walkable city, so we parked our car in the hotel lot and didn’t have to touch it until it was time to go home. 😅 Needless to say, this would be our first and last time hiring from this company.
We stayed at Hotel Washington. It was a beautiful fancy hotel that Toby chose because it was near the White House, Washington Monument, and restaurants. They were filming the next Captain America movie just outside! 🤫 Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any celebrities during our time there and missed out on all the times they were filming. The valet told us that one of the main stars of the movie was staying at our hotel though – too bad he couldn’t remember his name.
I’ve always been impressed by the sheer size of the buildings in Washington. Many of them take up an entire block!
Things to Do: The National Mall
When you visit Washington DC, the main sights can be broken up into 3 categories: 1) Monuments and Memorials, 2) Government Buildings, and 3) Museums. All of these surround a large walkable grassy area that is grouped together known as The National Mall. The map below outlines this grassy area and if you have a good pair of walking shoes, you should be able to hit all the memorials in one day, which is what we did!
Our itinerary:
Day 1 (red): We arrived around lunch time and after checking in, we started at the White House (right across from our hotel) and headed towards the Washington monument then did a circle to the Lincoln memorial, around the Jefferson memorial, then back up past the Washington monument and back to the hotel for some dinner.
Day 2 (blue): We headed to Capitol Hill and took some photos outside, walked through the US Botanic Garden, then finished off at the Air and Space Museum.
Day 3 (green): We spent all day at the massive Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
How Many Days Do You Need?
It depends on what you want to see and how much time you’re willing to put in. If you only want to see the major monuments and memorials and the outside of the buildings, you could easily finish it all in 1 day.
If you want to go inside the government buildings such as Capitol Hill and The White House and join a tour, I’d recommend adding on an extra day or two, depending on your tour times and how packed you want your schedule to be.
Washington is home to MANY museums and it would be a shame to leave without at least visiting one or two. The two most popular ones are the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History. Each of these museums are quite large and can easily take up nearly an entire day. If you want to visit both, add on an extra 2 days. Apart from these two, there are also a variety of other museums that are free of charge that can easily add on to your itinerary.
For us, we spent a total of 3 days and saw all the major monuments and memorials, saw the outside of the White House and Capitol Hill but didn’t attend any tours, and went to the Air and Space Museum as well as the Museum of Natural History. This was just enough time for us to enjoy everything without feeling too rushed. If we have a chance to visit again, I’d book some walking tours inside the government buildings and maybe visit the Museum of American History which has a lot of cool famous historical items.
1) Monuments and Memorials
Washington Monument
You can go inside for free, BUT tickets have to be reserved at least 30 days in advance or released at 10am the day before. You can find more info at recreation.gov. We didn’t end up going inside during this trip, but I went in a few years back and I remember it being a small museum of the history of the monument and photos documenting the building process.
World War II Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
Korean War Veterans Memorial
I’ve been told that this memorial is also cool to check out at night!
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
2) Government Buildings
The White House
This was the best photo I could get of the White House. If you get too close to the White House you end up with bars and gates in your photo and its hard to see the entirety of the building. We didn’t end up going into the White House because it is a HUGE process to organize. First, you have to book your tickets at a minimum of 21 days prior to visiting but no longer than 90 days. Second, in order to organize your tour, you have to contact your member of congress if you’re a US citizen, or if you’re a foreign citizen, you have to contact your embassy in DC. More information here. I definitely did not plan early enough for this trip to make this happen and the amount of effort it took was a bit too much for us. Maybe next time.
Capitol Hill
You can visit Capitol Hill free of charge, but it has to be with a guided tour. Tours last roughly an hour (more info here). We didn’t end up going in during this trip because we were a bit short on time. I mainly wanted to see the outside of the building, however sadly during our trip, it was under renovation. 😦
United States Botanic Garden
This wasn’t originally on our list but we happened to walk past it on our way to Capitol Hill and checked it out. It was a lot larger than we expected they had a large display of unusual orchids on display at the time!
3) Museums
There are a TON of museums in DC and the best part is that they’re all free! The Smithsonian museums are HUGE and takes a lot of time to get through but there are some really cool things in them. Due to popularity, remember to check online to see if you need to book tickets ahead of time. We almost didn’t get to see the Air and Space museum because we didn’t know you needed a timed ticket!
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
This is one of our favourite Smithsonian museums in DC. There are a lot of original famous historical items here including the original Wright brothers’ plane and also original parts from the space shuttle missions. The museum goes through a chronological history of air and space in time starting with the invention of planes and ending with space travel. Tickets are free, but you HAVE to buy them early and there are timed entries. If you don’t buy them early, same-day tickets are released at 8:30am and if there are any leftover, they are re-released at 12:30pm. Toby and I (and many other tourists) learned this the hard way. We rocked up at 12:15pm and stood outside in the super humid heat and waited until 12:30pm until online ticket portals were open and quickly snagged two tickets. Not everyone was so lucky and had to come back another day. It was also super busy, so I’d recommend planning early and booking the first ticket of the day so you’re not rushed to get through everything in time before closing. We JUST managed to get through everything but didn’t have time to see any of the short films.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/
This was our second favourite museum in DC. This museum is HUGE and tickets are not required beforehand. Entry is free and it will likely take you all day to get through it all. This museum has the largest collection of dinosaur fossils that I’ve ever seen and there are a TON of things to see here. Definitely worth a visit!
Smithsonian Castle
This was also not on our list of things to do, but we happened to walk by it on our way to the Museum of Natural History. There was a beautiful garden to walk through and the building is the Smithsonian Castle, which is temporarily closed.
Things to Eat
We weren’t really expecting a big foodie trip, so we just googled nearby restaurants to our hotel and found the two top rated ones and spent most of our meals there 😅.
Joe’s Seafood, Prime Rib and Stone Crab
Joe’s is a chain restaurant with locations in Chicago and Vegas. They specialize in seafood (esp stone crab) and prime rib. Over the course of two separate meals, we ordered the crab cakes, steak tartare, lobster, prime rib, and stone crab. The prime rib was meh, but the crab cake was delicious (although pricey) and the stone crab was out of this world! We had never had stone crab until now and we were HOOKED. We went back the next day just to have the stone crab again. Oh boy!
Old Ebbitt Grill
This restaurant has historical significance – it is Washington’s first saloon, opened in 1856! It’s now owned by a corporate restaurant chain but they’ve preserved the interior very nicely and the place has a great ambience to it. They pride themselves on being a ‘scratch kitchen’, making everything from scratch including all the sauces. The food was decent but nothing mind-blowing (the crab cakes were better at Joe’s), but the atmosphere was great and it was always busy during dinner time, so make sure you make reservations!
VUE Rooftop (inside Hotel Washington)
https://www.vuerooftopdc.com/rooftop-bars-dc
This rooftop bar was located inside of our hotel which was nice. It has great views of the Washington monument as well as the White House in the distance. The drinks are decent and the vibes were lovely at sunset. There’s a whole restaurant area but we already had dinner at this point so we only had drinks and dessert.
We drove home early next day to make it back in time to unwind and do laundry before work started the day after. Thanks for reading! If you have any tips or suggestions for DC, I’d love to hear them!
Polyphagic Abby 