District of Columbia, DC Road Trips

Washington, D.C., is a city born of politics, by politics, and for politics. It wasn't the first national capital: Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Annapolis, Trenton, and even New York City all tried their hand at hosting the national government. For a time, it seemed like Philadelphia would stake a claim as home to the federal government. However, Congress soured on the "Cradle of Liberty" after disaffected American soldiers, with the tacit sanction of the Pennsylvania government, chased the legislators out of the city to Princeton. That incident made clear that the nation's capital would need to be independent from the then-powerful state governments and that the southern states would refuse to accept a northern capital. Three of the nation's founding fathers, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, agreed in 1790 to a compromise location for a new national capital on largely uninhabited land along the Potomac River in the Mid-Atlantic. This was made famous in the musical Hamilton with the song The Room Where It Happened. The exact location was left up to George Washington, who carved a diamond-shaped federal district out of land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, which happened to be near his plantation at Mount Vernon. The new territory also included two existing settlements: Georgetown, on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and Alexandria, Virginia, at the district's southern tip. The French-born architect Pierre L'Enfant was charged with planning a new federal city on the north side of the Potomac, next to Georgetown.

Most of the attractions in D.C. are on the National Mall, the West End, and Capitol Hill. While there are many maps on display throughout the city, the official National Mall map and the Library of Congress map are great to have handy. The National Mall is a unique park, filled with an intense concentration of monuments, memorials, museums, and monumental government buildings instantly recognizable to people all over the world. The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of American History, and the Holocaust Museum, are just a few of the top attractions on the National Mall. To walk down the National Mall is to thread the halls of world power in the modern era. Here the world's most powerful politicians and their staffs fill the grand neo-classical buildings of the three branches of US Government, making decisions that reverberate in the remotest corners of the world. The National Mall is larger than it looks, and a walk from one end of the National Mall to the other will take a while and may wear you down a bit. Plan ahead what you want to see and concentrate your activities in one section of the National Mall each day.

D.C. has the highest ratio of parkland to population in the country for a city its size. Many of these parks are crowded with soccer, football, rugby, kickball, baseball, and ultimate frisbee players. The National Mall may be the most famous park, but there are several other large beautiful parks in the city. The 2,000 acre Rock Creek Park, a national park, bisects the city north of the Anacostia River. The park is full of deer (who overpopulate, due to lack of predators), squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, birds, and even a few coyotes. The park includes paved biking/running trails that extend from Maryland to the Lincoln Memorial and connecting with the Mount Vernon trail in Northern Virginia. There are also plenty of hiking trails, picnic spots, a golf course, a variety of Ranger-led/educational programs, and kayaks, canoes, and SUPs can be rented for $22-$32/hour at the Thompson Boat Center on the Potomac River. There are plenty of nice outdoor spaces just beyond the park. South of Massachusetts Ave, you can take a path west out to the beautiful Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown, and then on to enormous Archibald-Glover Park, where the trails can lead you as far south and west as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park and Palisades Park. Following the main trail along the creek all the way south will take you under the Whitehurst Freeway and down to the National Mall, where joggers avail themselves of the incredible path right along the Potomac beneath the monuments.

Washington has a little bit of everything, from really good ethnic takeout to lobbyist-fueled places that can run over $1,000 for a meal for two. Most of the high end cuisine is available in the West End, the East End, Georgetown, and Dupont Circle—offering dining experiences ranging from steakhouses packed with powerful suits to Minibar by Jose Andres, a 12-seat restaurant offering a 30-course meal for $350 (excluding beverages, tax and 22% service charge). As a general rule, expect higher prices in popular tourist haunts such as Georgetown, Penn Quarter and Dupont Circle, while more exciting and innovative cuisine can be found to the east in Logan Circle, Adams Morgan and H Street. D.C.'s international might draws representatives from all over the world, and they all need ex-pat cafes and restaurants to haunt. Salvadoran cuisine such as the pupusa is common in Columbia Heights. Pupusas are thick corn tortillas stuffed with cheese, optionally fried pork, refried beans, or all sorts of other things, then topped with a tart cabbage salad and an Italianesque red sauce. Ethiopian food is a D.C. staple due to the city's large Ethiopian community. Ethiopian food is a wild ride of spicy stewed and sautéed meats and vegetables served atop a plate covered with a spongy bread called injera. You eat the dishes with your hands, using an extra plate of injera (similar to bread) as your sole "utensil"—rip off a piece of the injera and use it to pick up your food.

The legal drinking/purchasing age is 21 and it is strictly enforced in D.C. Be prepared to have your identification checked, even if you appear to be well over 21. Last call can be as late as 3AM, although many establishments will let you stay beyond that, especially downtown. It is rare but not unknown for nightclubs to stay open beyond 3AM though they may lock you in or stop serving alcohol. As in most American cities, drinking alcoholic beverages on the street is illegal. The law is flouted openly in many areas but bars will not generally let you take your drink even a step off-premise. Near downtown, Dupont and Logan Circle are probably the best neighborhoods to go if you are in town for just a brief period, full of locals of all ages, especially D.C. young professionals. U Street has lots of clubs and a thriving nightlife scene, and if you are European and looking for a good club, this is where you want to be. The larger Shaw neighborhood is well gentrified, though attracts a well to do, good-looking African American crowd, particularly at many of the city's brunch places which often double as nightlife venues as the evening progresses. Georgetown has classier bars and clubs and some very expensive restaurants, but is shunned by the hip, cool crowd. The nearby West End has some interesting locales close to its border with Dupont Circle. Adams Morgan, formerly the dingy alternative to Dupont, has become hipper, cooler and trendier today, especially with young residents and visiting cool kids. You'll find many of the city's best bars and new restaurants here.

Hotels of all classes and price ranges can be found in many neighborhoods of D.C., as well as in the nearby suburbs. If you are coming by car, be sure to factor the cost of parking, which can be free in hotels outside the city limits but can cost over $35 per day in hotels in the downtown area. The hotel tax in D.C. is 15.95%, while the tax is 14.25% in the nearby suburb of Arlington, 13.00% in Bethesda and Reston, and 12.00% in Tysons Corner and most of Herndon. Hotels in the D.C. area are generally most expensive on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, when business travel reaches its peak, and cheapest on the weekend. The hotels of the East End, the business-centric West End, and charming Georgetown (which features many boutique choices) are the most popular accommodation options due to their proximity to the tourist attractions and top dining spots. Naturally, these areas have many brand-name options to choose from. If booking in these areas, be aware that the West End consists mainly of office buildings and is generally dead after dark. Georgetown is not accessible by Metrorail, although it is easy to travel to/from Georgetown by bus or a ride-hailing service. Better bargains may be had in the nightlife-centered districts of Dupont Circle, Shaw, Near Northeast, and Capitol Hill, all of which are a short metro or bus ride to, or, when the weather is nice, a nice walk to, the National Mall. These areas may actually be preferable because their nightlife options make a late night out more convenient. Moreover, it is easier to find street parking on the weekend.

Washington, D.C. (WAS IATA for all airports) is served by three major airports. All three airports offer unlimited free Wi-Fi. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA IATA) is the closest and most convenient airport to D.C., 3 mi (4.8 km) south of the city in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River. However, there are no customs clearance facilities and therefore it can only serve destinations in the United States or airports in Canada and the Caribbean that allow U.S. customs pre-clearance. Moreover, due to the noise created by planes flying directly over a heavily populated area, the number of non-stop long-haul flights is limited. At Gravelly Point Park, directly north of the runway, you can watch planes takeoff and land, providing some great photo opportunities. To get to D.C. from the airport: WMATA operates Metrorail service to/from the airport via the Blue and Yellow lines. The trip to the East End takes approximately 15 minutes and costs approximately $3. Hours of operation are generally M-Th 5AM-11:30PM, F 5AM-1AM, Sa 7AM-1AM, and Su 7AM-11PM Uber, Lyft, DCAcar and Taxis take approximately 10 minutes to Washington, D.C. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD IATA) is 26 miles (42 km) west of D.C. in Sterling, Virginia and serves as D.C.'s primary international and intercontinental airport. The main terminal is an architectural masterpiece, with a curved roof that arcs gracefully into air, suspended over a huge open ticketing and check-in area.

Be prepared to walk until your feet hurt! It's no surprise that D.C. has been cited as the fittest city in the country; residents and visitors get a lot of exercise simply getting around the city! Even if you plan on taking public transportation or driving, you will often find yourself walking or biking for a large portion of the day. Most of the city's attractions, such as the museums and monuments along the National Mall, are located near each other, which makes driving or taking Metrorail between the sights either impractical or impossible. Therefore, make sure to wear good walking shoes and, especially during the spring and summer, wear comfortable and light clothing, a wide-brimmed hat, apply sunscreen, and carry a bottle of water. Also, when it comes to shoes, lots of government buildings have metal detectors at the entrances, and if your shoes have any kind of metal reinforcement they will set off the metal detectors, forcing you to take them off, have them inspected, and just generally take more time getting in and out of the building than you had to spend. During the summer, visit air-conditioned museums during the day, and save the monuments, neighborhood tours, and other outdoor attractions for the cooler early morning and evening hours. The city is split into four quadrants of unequal size, which radiate out from the Capitol Building: Northwest (NW), Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), and Southwest (SW). The NW quadrant is by far the largest and SW the smallest. Addresses in the city always include the quadrant abbreviation, e.g., 1000 H Street NE.

Metropolitan DC Police Department presence in the city is predictably very heavy, especially in tourist areas and near government buildings. But they are only one of the dozens of law enforcement agencies operating in the city; in addition to MPD, the Capitol, Parks, and even the Metro have their own, independent forces (not to mention plenty of the Federal ones). In general, the often-traveled areas, such as the area around Smithsonian, the monuments, and the Kennedy Center, are safe to walk around, even in the evening. The areas east of the Capitol are generally less safe, but visitors can safely see attractions there if they stay aware of their surroundings. Although the number of homicides has ticked up, violent crime in D.C. is close to a generational low. The number of annual homicides has declined from 479 in 1991, when Washington was known as the "murder capital", to a low of 88 in 2012, and 186 in 2024. As a visitor, you are extremely unlikely to be the victim of a homicide; the vast majority of homicide victims in the U.S. are acquainted with their murderer long before the crime. The majority of homicides occur in the less-traveled parts of the city, such as Anacostia and the Northeast and Southeast, especially near public housing projects. Muggings are a problem in the nightlife-centered neighborhoods of Shaw, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, and Near Northeast and the area around the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station. However, visitors should not avoid these areas—on the contrary, it would be a shame to miss out on them—but visitors should be vigilant.