I’ve not driven in Manhattan, just taken the subway and taxis.
As for places to stay in Washington, we like the Tabard Inn.
Another bit of safety advice. There has beeen a rash of fatal accidents involving pedestrians crossing streets in this metro area.
As a pedestrian, be very cautious. Drivers are aggressive, inattentive, and impatient. Don’t assume a driver is going to stop just because you have stepped into a crosswalk. Try to catch the driver’s eye and be sure ē* is stopping before you step in front of a car.
*I’m experimenting with ē, ēm, and ēs as pronouns that do not indicate any specific gender nor exclude any specific gender.
I would have never guessed it was that inexpensive. Watch out, though. It may get more expensive in the summer.
We choose to live in the Maryland suburbs, but if we were visiting might prefer Virginia. I’d definitely compare prices between VA and DC, though. Also, don’t assume traffic won’t be worse in VA. I find getting around DC by car to be fairly easy compared to, say, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Depends on the hotel room. Some have really nice views of the river & downtown DC.
Where are you coming from, and how will you be travelling?
If by plane, the airport might help in deciding whereabouts to stay. If driving, your direction would help decide which area to stay.
Alexandria / Arlington are all good places (I live in Virginia so am more familiar with those). You won’t want to go too far outside the Beltway or you won’t have access to the Metro. There are a number of new, reasonably nice hotels near the Franconia-Springfield Metro (end of the Blue line), and that’s also close to miscellaneous shopping (Springfield Mall, which wont have anything you can’t get at home, Springfield Plaza for groceries etc.). There are a number of hotels along Eisenhower Avenue (Yellow line). Many hotels that aren’t on the Metro run shuttles to/from the nearest station.
Be warned that the Blue Line won’t be running parts of the summer; this is a specific inconvenience for us as both of us take Metro to work, and live near the end of the Blue Line. New alternatives in works for Metro’s Blue, Yellow line summer shutdown - WTOP News So nothing south of National Airport is a good choice this summer (Memorial to Labor Days). Crystal City etc. should be fine. Locals will find other ways to get into town; as a tourist, I advise against having to figure that out.
Oh - and re riding Metro:
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Buy a reloadable SmarTrip card the first time you use it. If you go with the paper cards, the fare is higher. Register the SmarTrip card when you have a chance, that gives you some protection in case you lose it.
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When riding the escalators (if they’re working…) stand to the right unless you’re walking up or down.
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The doors open on the right or left side of the car, depending on the station. They usually announce which it will be.
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Get a pocket map to keep handy. There are maps in the cars but they might be obscured by other passengers.
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You’re not supposed to eat or drink in the stations. This is largely obeyed. I’ve been known to sneak a swig from my water bottle though.
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By and large it’s a very safe system, though the occasional incident does occur. My husband’s phone was snatched out of his hand while he was sitting on a train; a thief grabbed it out of his hand and ran just as the train doors were about to close. So be aware, and keep toys inaccessible as much as you can.
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Check the hours. The system opens at about 6 on weekdays, 8 on weekends (I think), and closes about midnight. You can always call a Lyft or whatever if you miss closing time.
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If you wind up at a suburban station and need a ride back to the hotel, there are supposedly taxis there. If there aren’t, it can be tough to get one to come for you as they’ll all argue “there is a taxi stand there”. Might be easier to call Lyft or Uber in that case. We were returning from New York via bus late one Sunday night, to a commuter rail station (the commuter train runs only on weekdays) and 3 different cab companies argued there was a taxi stand at the not-in-use station. Ugh.
As a Metro commuter, #2 for the love of God. Especially during rush hour.
This! 1000 times THIS!
I like to use the excellent and free MetroHero app for getting around on the Metro. It’s got real time train tracking as well as trip planning. It also has a digital version of the system map. You might also download Citymapper for general directions in DC as well.
A couple of other apps you might like are the Smithsonian app and the National Mall app.
As mentioned Crystal City being nearest DCA is rife with hotels but yeah, thirded, the space between US 1 and the train tracks is some bad urban landscape fail.
(BTW if you think the traffic on 395 and between Alexandria and the 14th St. Bridge is bad now, wait 'til Amazon starts setting up.)
If you are driving on the trip you may have figured out by now that the closer in to town, the fewer the chances of free parking included.
Opens 5am on nonholiday weekdays. But realistically you should give it 5:30a-11p because of course some lines take longer than others to get from one end to the other. Fridays and Saturdays it stays open 'til 1am but again I would give it only to 12:30. Weekends are worktimes so timetables can be cut to run even further apart, so like she said: before choosing a location based on Metro access hit the WMATA website and check if there’s going to be line closures on those dates.
SmartTrip card definitely a must for multiple uses. DC Metro uses touch- rather than swipe- cards and requires them to both enter and exit, and the fare is dependent on distance and peak time so better to have something you can replenish on the go. Whether to load a time pass vs cash value is as everywhere dependent on how long you’ll be around and how much it will be used.
If only. I see discarded food packaging on the metro now daily. It’s sad.
Actually, what annoys me more is when people are going the wrong way on an escalator. Here’s something that might surprise you–even if an escalator is not moving, it still has a direction. Don’t go against traffic. If you’re trying to walk down a non-moving escalator and you’re having to fight against a crowd of people going up, find a different escalator or the stairs.
More rarely, all but one escalator is blocked off and there’s no stairs. Only in that case does an escalator become two-directional.
And in these cases, the elevator will, of course, be out, also. 
It shouldn’t need to be called out, but if my sister in law is this stupid/controlling then maybe others are too… (not the OP, but maybe future lurkers)
If you’re traveling with family, each person needs their own card, and each person needs to swipe in and out with their own card. (SIL insisted on holding everybody’s cards and then used just one to swipe everybody in. Then she couldn’t swipe more than one person out because of the card mismatch in the system and had to get the station supervisor to solve her dilemma.)
3a) When you are entering the train, look for any exiters that are trying to exit and let them exit first, otherwise there will be a traffic jam.
3b) If you are an exiter who is a victim of this, either keep quiet or educate the offenders. Do not passively aggressively complain about tourists to the patiently-waiting crowd of tourists who did wait for you to exit.
If there are numerous empty seats around in the car you are riding in, don’t pick the one next to me
I’d suggest staying in Old Town Alexandria (King Street Metro). The Embassy Suites across from the station is $143 this weekend. There’s many good restaurants and bars to go to at night, as well as historical sites and attractions during the day. There’s also a water taxi service to Georgetown, The Wharf, and National Harbor.
I’m going to be contrary and say “stay downtown”, in spite of what the OP is asking. We’ve found good rates at the Mayflower, four blocks from the White House grounds, and close to the Metro. One of my best memories was walking around the White House on a dark, quiet, foggy evening, then walking over to the Washington Monument. (Would you rather stay in the heart of Paris, or in the suburbs?) Yes, it was a pain navigating the traffic circles in the city, but we parked the car for a few days (our room rate included parking) and used the Metro after that (and the tourist hop-on, hop-off buses to the memorials).
The rest of the advice about the Metro is correct, but I really liked not spending a good portion of my day to get to where I really wanted to go.
They stopped accepting the paper cards a few years ago.
One annoying thing to be aware of is that if you don’t have enough money on your card to exit a station, the machines to load your exit fare only accept cash.
Yes, that is highly annoying. I still don’t understand that.
In any event, if you tell the station manager, he’ll let you go to the machines outside the turnstiles to load your card. I’ve had to do this a few times.
There are NO public restrooms in the Metro system. None. There are secret locked restrooms that you *may *convince the station manager to let you into with his/her key if you look desperate enough and not like you want to go in there and shoot up. But no guarantees.