Here is the truth about Washington, DC. You cannot finish this city. Not in a week, which is what we gave it. Not in two weeks. Not in a month. You don’t realize it until you are standing in the middle of it with sore feet and less than a half-empty list. The Smithsonian alone is a campus of museums, the Mall runs wall to wall with monuments, and every other block holds a building where something that shaped the country happened. We came in with a plan, filled every day until our feet quit on us, and still drove back to the camper with more on the list than we had crossed off.
So consider this our running DC bucket list. Part of it is the handful we did get to, the stops good enough to earn their own posts. The rest is everything we could not squeeze into one visit, the long and growing column we are already planning a return trip to chip away at. If you are planning a trip to the capital yourself, treat this as the map of a city too big to beat in one go - well, unless you plan to stay a month or more.
What we got to
We did notch a few real wins, and the best of them earned their own posts. The best day of the whole week was our tour of the Capitol and the Supreme Court. We spent a morning down the Potomac at Mount Vernon, George Washington's home above the water. We also worked Georgetown and the C&O Canal on our last day and climbed the Exorcist stairs just to say we did, the day behind The C&O Canal and the Streets of Georgetown. And we got our walk among the headline monuments, the Lincoln Memorial chief among them.
That was a full week of good days. It was also, as we would learn, barely a dent.
The tours that need a head start
The first thing DC teaches a road-tripper is that some of its best doors only open if you ask months ahead, and we
rolled in assuming we could wing it to an extent. The White House is the headliner there. You arrange a tour through your member of Congress, and you want to start that conversation at least three months out. We were closer to two and a half, which was about the same as knocking on the front door the morning of. The Pentagon runs on its own clock, with tours booked at least a couple of weeks ahead to clear security. The FBI is the strictest of the bunch, asking for your request as much as five months in advance and no less than four weeks due to security clearances. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where they print the country's money, lands on that same early-bird list. Next time, we will have calendar reminders set up.
The Smithsonian and the founding documents
Then there is the small matter of the Smithsonian, which is less a museum and more a campus of them, and the entry price is the best deal in America at exactly zero dollars. Air and Space, Natural History, American History, we rolled past all of them and never made it inside. The big Air and Space annex, the Udvar-Hazy Center out by Dulles, is where they keep a space shuttle and a Blackbird and enough hardware to lose a whole day to. Down the street, the National Archives keeps the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights under glass. The Library of Congress is supposed to be one of the most beautiful rooms in the country before you even open a book.
The Spy Museum
The International Spy Museum kept coming up every time we talked about what to do with a free afternoon, and then we never found the free afternoon. At least half a dozen different people told us the same thing, that it is one of the most underrated stops in the whole city and that you do not leave DC without seeing it. It is down by L'Enfant Plaza, built around the real tools of the trade. Inside you find dead drops, hidden cameras, and the gadgets that sound made up until you learn they were standard issue. We ran out of days before we could get there, so it goes near the top of the list for our next visit.
Ford's Theatre
Ford's Theatre was the one that hurt to leave undone. It was closed for renovations the whole stretch we were in town, and it sat near the top of my own want-to-see list. This is the theater where Lincoln was shot, and getting to stand in that room someday is exactly the kind of history we chase down on these trips. Across the street, the Petersen House is where he was carried that night and where he died, so together the two sites tell the whole story.
The Mall after dark
We saw the Lincoln Memorial by day, but the Mall holds a whole second shift we never reached, and most of it is best after the sun goes down. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, that long black wall, is said to be the quietest and most powerful thing down there. The WWII and Korean War memorials sit close by, and the Korean War statues are said to be at their eeriest in low light. The FDR Memorial is the one people keep calling underrated, four open-air rooms with waterfalls, one for each term. The MLK Memorial and the Pentagon's own 9/11 Memorial round out the group. A good part of this was simply hard to reach from where we were parked, with paths near the Mall fenced off for the America 250 buildup. Cherry Hill Park even runs a weekly evening tour out to see the monuments lit up, Thursday nights while we were there, and we kept meaning to climb aboard and kept not doing it. Seeing the whole Mall glow after dark sits right at the top of the next-trip list.
Everything else still on the list
After that the list just keeps going, which is the whole point of the place. Great Falls, where the Potomac quits being a lazy river and turns into whitewater, is a short drive. The Washington National Cathedral, the Wharf down on the water, and the National Zoo all got talked about and none got visited. We were months on the wrong side of the Cherry Blossom Festival, which blooms for a couple of weeks in spring and not a single day in June. And somewhere in there I still owe myself a Nationals game, ideally one where they are losing to the Braves.
None of this is a complaint. A week that leaves you with a list this long is a week well spent, and a city worth coming back for again and again. That is the thing about Washington. You do not finish it, you just keep a list and keep returning to it. The good news is that the list never really runs out.
The DC Checklist
Already knocked out
- Lincoln Memorial
- U.S. Capitol Building
- Washington Monument
- Arlington National Cemetery
- Jefferson Memorial
- U.S. Supreme Court Building
- Mount Vernon
- Georgetown and the C&O Canal
Still on the list for next time
- White House tour (arrange through your member of Congress about three months ahead)
- Pentagon tour (book at least two weeks ahead)
- FBI tour (request up to five months ahead, no less than four weeks)
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- Smithsonian National Museum of American History
- Udvar-Hazy Center (the Air and Space annex near Dulles)
- National Archives (the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights)
- Library of Congress (the Main Reading Room)
- International Spy Museum
- Ford's Theatre
- Petersen House
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Korean War Veterans Memorial
- FDR Memorial
- MLK Memorial
- Pentagon 9/11 Memorial
- The monuments lit up at night (Cherry Hill Park runs an evening tour)
- Great Falls
- Washington National Cathedral
- The Wharf
- National Zoo
- Cherry Blossom Festival (spring)
- Nationals game
