My wife and I hosted my 13 year old cousin a month ago (we’re both 33).
Our itinerary:
Friday
Bureau of Engraving and Printing (where money is made); only open on weekdays
Jefferson Memorial
WW2 Memorial
Washington Monument (advance tickets available online for a couple bucks)
American Indian Museum (lunch at very good and interesting cafeteria)
US Capitol Visitor Center
Library of Congress
Natural History Museum
dinner at Fogo de Chao
Saturday
US Postal Museum
bowling and lunch at Lucky Strike in Chinatown/Gallery Place
pizza dinner at home
bought Percy Jackson book 3 on Kindle and he finished it before bed
Sunday
Udvar-Hazy Air and Space (Dulles)
lunch at McDonald’s
Vietnam War Memorial
Air and Space on the Mall
lasagne dinner at home
Monday
Holocaust Museum
depart midday
Everything except bowling and meals was free. Parking at the Dulles Air and Space Museum is $15 per vehicle. Spy Museum and Crime & Punishment Museum are great once, but are not free. Having been to both recently, I wasn’t willing to pay three admissions and have two of us be bored.
Be sure to go to the Egyptian Wing at the Met. My mom took me there when the King Tut exhibit toured and it got me hooked on the museum in general for life. Arms and Armor and Musical instruments might be interesting to him. There’s also a wing with wild artwork from the south Pacific, not to mention the Islamic section and Asian wing. So many nice interior spaces. The Met has an almost anthropological bent that I really like. The paintings are good, too ;). The thing about the Met is that it’s huge and fatigue can set in after a few hours.
Also, since you’re going to the Hayden Planetarium, the rest of the Museum of Natural History is a must.
If you get a chance you should go to Max Brenner’s for lunch or dinner. It is fantastic and it would be the dining experience of a lifetime for an 11 year old. Liquid chocolate zooms around the restaurant in tubes in the ceiling, the decor is all huge bars of chocolate, jars of cocoa beans, and huge chunks of crystalized sugar. The lunch/dinner menu is tasty and the dessert choices are so amazing it cannot be explained properly in words.
I just went to Washington DC with my whole family, one of whom is an 11-year-old boy, and our favorite thing was the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. I believe it’s just a block or so away from the Spy Museum, so those two together could be a great way to spend a day with very little distance to walk. The Verizon Center is just a block away as well, so if the Wizards or Capitals are in town, you may want to try getting tickets to there as well.
There’s a lot of museum-going on your agenda. If you need some run-around type activities and the weather is agreeable, you might look into a visit to Great Falls or Teddy Roosevelt Island in the DC area. The zoo is always a good option, too. If you haven’t been there before, you should know that it’s a few blocks from the Metro and once inside the park it’s another good walk before you get to actual exhibits.
As a full-grown museum fan, I must admit the Met did me in. Check the website for the best bits–which do include the Egyptian & other “anthropological” areas. After a while, galleries filled with paintings all start to look alike.
We went to DC on New Year’s Eve. My son, who happens to be 11 (for a couple more weeks) was with us. I asked him what he wanted to see (after giving him a long list of options). He wanted to see the Holocaust Museum. I was fairly surprised - I was sure a lot of museums would have been ahead on the list. So we went there. It’s hardly cheery, and it’s a good 3-4 hours or more, which might be a bit much for a kid that age.
Not that I’m necessarily recommending it. But I am recommending that you talk to your nephew about what he wants to do. He might surprise you.
The National Museum of Health and Medicine is the grossest museum you’ll ever encounter. Severed limbs, distended intestines, and stomach contents of all sorts. An 11-year-old boy is precisely the target audience.
Skip the White House. Long wait for a short and boring tour that takes you through very little of the building. The Monument is also not really worth the wait. You’ll see better views in New York.