For monuments, I like the Monuments at Night tour. You can get to the monuments on your own, but it’s a lot easier just to hop on a bus and knock them out. The night tour is great because they look nice lit up, they are MUCH less crowded, the weather is a bit cooler and (most importantly) the timing is good, as the Smithsonians close relatively early.
If you can, fly into National Airport (Ronald Reagan). The metro goes right up to the terminal, and it’s very easy to do via public transit. You can take public transit to Dulles or (heavens forbid) BWI, but it’s more complicated and takes forever.
If you are in a situation where public transportation isn’t working for a trip, don’t be scared to take a cab. Within the District, they are quite reasonable. It gets more expensive if you go outside of DC proper. Uber is also enormously popular.
I want to put in my obligatory pitch for the Udvar-Hazy center in Chantilly, VA. It’s a 40 minute drive but it’s worth it. There are, like, 10 times as many planes as the air and space museum, including the space shuttle, the Concorde, and the Enola Gay…three aircraft that start with “the”.
If walking is an issue for you, consider buying a trolley pass for ~$35 a day (online) or $55 for a 2-day pass. The trolleys stop every block or so, depending on what’s around. Sometimes I do the entire circuit (especially if the tour guide is engaging) to get a feel for what’s around, and figure out where I want to get off.
I’ve lived and worked in the DC area since 2008. I really like living here.
Both are very good and safe, in general, with some caveats. Rail has moderately frequent maintenance problems, including with escalators in the stations. The escalator situation can be a problem for people with mobility difficulties. For the on-track problems, there’s a significant delay in maybe 1 out of every 100 rides or so (from my memory – I ride every day to work and back).
Also, during rush hour, the trains are CROWDED. Rush hours are weekdays, with the biggest crowds from about 7-9 AM going into DC and 4:30-7 PM leaving DC. It can be wise to plan trips to avoid these times.
Bus is very good but can be confusing, even to long-time residents, unless you ride every day (and I don’t). The buses go pretty much everywhere, including places the trains don’t, like Georgetown.
I recommend this hotel, in Arlington, if luxury is not important to you. It has decent rooms, is quite affordable, about 3 blocks from the Virginia Square metro-rail station, which means you can be at Smithsonian or most other downtown DC attractions in 15 or 20 minutes. You’ll be able to walk to several decent restaurants and a shopping mall as well.
All of these are cool to see. If you’re willing to possibly wait in a long line, you can also get free tickets to see Congress and/or the Senate in session by calling your congressman or Senator, and picking them up from their office in the Capitol office buildings.
If you have kids, I strongly recommend the zoo. Actually, see the zoo even if you don’t have kids. It’s free and it’s a great zoo. My wife and I go a few times a year just because it’s fun. It’s on the Red Line of Metro – get off at the Cleveland Park stop, walk to the zoo, and then walk downhill to the Woodley Park stop when you’re ready to leave (assuming you’re going back to central DC or Arlington).
As far as tour guides, I can’t help you there, but I don’t think you’ll need one – just about everything is metro-accessible, though there might be a lot of walking. You could spend a day (or more) with Smithsonian museums – Air and Space, Natural History, and (surprisingly) Ancient Art are my favorites (the Ancient Art might be divided up into a couple of smaller museums, IIRC).
DC in the summer is HOT and humid. I’m from Louisiana, and I find that it gets almost as hot in DC as in Louisiana – the main difference is that DC is really hot only in July and August, while Louisiana is really hot from May to October.
I,really like the Context Travel walking tours, but I am a huge nerd and they can also be pricey (www.contexttravel.com). The Metro is great, the buses can be more involved to navigate. My favorite museums are the National Galleries, if you ate really interested in art, watch Herb and Dorothy on Netflix before you come, they were two working class folks who amassed a huge art collection and donated it to the National Gallery.
I just want to take a moment to point out what a smart recommendation this is. The Highlander is surrounded by everything you could need, and it’s even just a minute away from Red Top Cab - after all these years, still the best cab company in the region. And you can walk to about a million pretty good restaurants or a grocery store in a few minutes.
Actually, now that I think about it, Gallaudet itself is pretty interesting, and just a few blocks from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Gallaudet has beautiful buildings, a fascinating history, and a wonderful exhibit covering the Deaf President Now protest (which was my time there). If you don’t have business there, but just want to see it as a tourist, call ahead. Lots of people do, and they actually have tour guides and a public relations department that is really that, and not about publicity. Gallaudet has lots of folklore and tradition among the students that a tour guide will explain, but you can see the campus without one-- or, you could, it’s possible that’s changed since 9-11.
The Old Post Office is closed and the food court that was there is no more. Something about Donald Trump converting it into an ultra-luxury hotel. The nearby White House VC just reopened after extensive remodeling and is with an hour or so. The best food court in the District, in my opinion, is at Union Station, which is itself an attraction, and also near the surprisingly interesting Smithsonian Postal Museum.
If you have time during your vacation, let us know when you’ll be here. We can schedule a Dopefest. This will be an evening at some restaurant in the area.
We stayed at Dupont Circle and got an amazingly good deal, but that may have been because it was mainly aimed at business travellers and there aren’t so many of those in summer in DC. It had a pool, which is one of the reasons I chose it, since I was travelling with a child and wanted something other than museums for her to enjoy.
Re: kids, the Spy Museum is well worth the money. You get to properly play at a level the parents will find entertaining too. The Newseum was also pretty good and the waxwork museum was better than any other I’ve been to; we only went because it was open late, but it turned out to be interesting because it’s entirely about US Presidents and it was educational seeing them al in a line and seeing how (apart from Lincoln) their height gradually increased.
I’d also recommend Ford theatre. Seeing where Lincoln was shot makes history seem much more real. It’s very near the Hard Rock Cafe which is fine if you want a burger in a place that’s not McD’s. They have more memorabilia there than you’d expect, like Beatles stuff. My daughter loved both.
I went in mid August and found it fine. Perhaps I was just lucky (it was 2011) or perhaps it was because we dressed for the weather. There’s lots of shade from trees on most of the roads, which helps.
Walking wasn’t a problem - it’s a very walkable city once you’re in the centre. We mostly walked back to Dupont Circle too.
This is a great recommendation; we did this, possibly as the result of a recommendation on here because I also started a thread.
Agreed again. The Postal Museum is also in a convenient location if you’re using the train at all.
For food I liked Chinatown and this Jewish restaurant a Doper took me to. Perhaps he’ll chime in and suppy the name, because my memory is failing me.
You got more lucky than you know-- in August 2011, the city was struck by a hurricane that put down 10" of rain (Irene), and a 5.8 magnitude earthquake.
And the nature of the bad weather is not the sun or the temperature itself – it’s the cloying and pestilential humidity that makes it feel like all the air is touching you, and you can’t get a good breath.
Perhaps you mean a different station. Union Station is on the red line, which does not go by the waterfront, and is not near many museums. Although others have mentioned that postal museum is nice.
Call your congresscritter. Do it now. Call the “best” one you have (I did this when Clyburn was the Majority Whip.) The tour you get from their office will let you skip lines, plus you get to see where your people work and all. We called too late to get a White House tour (this is one way to do that) but we got a Capitol tour, just my mom and aunt and me, from an intern who took us through the underground passages, past the line, to all the sights, and since it wasn’t too busy she showed us the majority leadership’s Capitol offices as well. The Majority Whip has a lovely view. Spent zero time standing in line. Ate at their nice, inexpensive cafeteria.
I frequently scheduled pickups on their website, but they changes it around a few months back. I ended up booking four cabs and couldn’t get dispatch to fix it. The last few times I’ve just called a cab with Uber (an actual licensed taxi, as per my company’s policies.)
We were in DC for a couple of days last summer. We stayed at the Holiday Inn two blocks south of the the Air and Space Museum, which was a fantastic location, and the price was pretty reasonable. No free breakfast though. We were happy with it and would stay there again.
I’ll second whoever mentioned that the Mall is LONG. We walked from our hotel down to the Lincoln Memorial and had to take a taxi back because our kids were not feeling well after that (granted, we are Californians and not used to heat + humidity). There are a lot of bicycle “cabs” around, so that is another mode of transportation around the Mall.
The cafeteria in the basement of the National Museum of the American Indian has great American Indian food.
My must-see sites are the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of American History, and the Lincoln Memorial. I also love the Jefferson Memorial, but it’s a long walk to get out there. Less crowded though, and it’s a beautiful walk. When my kids are a little older I would love to visit the National Gallery again.
