Our family had a family reunion in North Carolina this summer, so, hey, we decided to add a family trip to Washington DC before that. We had to fly all that way so why not.
I did a lot of research and realized that there was no way we could possibly do everything we wanted to do. Eric and I also have already been to DC, and we knew this would be "DC lite"/we could only go as fast as our kids were willing to go. So with this in mind, we made plans. All in all, it was a really great trip and I'm glad we did it.
Here are some helpful tips if you are planning on taking your kids:
1. You are going to walk a lot. Make sure every person has really good walking shoes. We debated between taking a little umbrella stroller or our jogging stroller and in the end we took our jogging stroller. I'm glad we did because it was where we carried the kids' stuff in addition to the tired pre-schooler.
2. Most museums are free, but food and lodging are expensive. We decided to just accept the prices and eat in the Smithsonian museums for convenience sake. We usually got discounts on food and in the gift shop---I happened to have my Smithsonian member card with me because I subscribe to Smithsonian magazine. Best magazine purchase ever, that card saved us from paying full price.
3. You can spend a lot on a fabulous motel, but we opted for reasonable and stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn in Foggy Bottom. Not a flashy hotel and IMO it could be updated, but free breakfast and near the Metro. A good choice for our family. There is a pool on the roof, but the kids and Eric said it was more like a puddle than a pool.
4. We flew into Baltimore and with a delayed flight we landed at about midnight. I had booked a shuttle, but their drivers didn't show up for us, so we took a random taxi. I was worried we were being hijacked, but it turned out that our taxi driver was an honest guy and really a taxi driver, how nice. He said that taxi drivers who drive early don't like to be out late and won't show up even if they do work for a shuttle service. The ride worked out for us this time, I'm not sure how to make it work for another time. If I take my kids again, I'll try to fly into Ronald Regan airport because it's right on the Metro. Then get a hotel I could get to on the Metro.*
5. It's nice to have a few places you know you can go and give the kids a break. There are ice cream and food trucks on Constitution Avenue by the sculpture garden. You aren't supposed to wade, but kids do take their shoes off and put their feet it. So it goes. We used the sculpture garden/ice cream truck as a resting place a couple of times. There are also gelato places, like the one in the underground passage between the two National Art Galleries. Most of these little cafes that serve gelato have early closing times, I don't know why.
6. There's an underground passage from the Library of Congress to the US Capitol. I read a lot of travel guides, but somehow I missed that. So it makes complete sense to start at one and use the passage for the other. The Library of Congress also has this charming Young Readers room that's like a little library with lots of children's books. I'm not sure you can check the books out, but it didn't matter, because after a long morning it was nice to just let the kids read books on the squashy beanbags in in the air conditioned room. My kids were grateful for the "ahhhh" rest.
*7. Speaking of the Metro---riding the Metro was a highlight of the whole trip for our kids. Go figure. I was happy to introduce them to big city public transportation, but I had not idea how much they would LOVE THE METRO. Not a big deal to me, but a WOW to them. As soon as we figured out how to find the elevators, getting our big stroller around was no problem.
8. One of the best things we did was put a big attraction in that would thrill each kid. Kid One loved the Natural History Museum, kids two and four adored the National Zoo, and kid three liked the American History Museum. I'll do that again---make sure there's a least one big thing for each kid/level.
9. A great thing we did was that Eric and I split up for the afternoon. He took the three big kids to Air and Space and I wandered the National Gallery---with the littlest one who napped in his stroller. Lovely for all involved, and a good mental note to me: even on a family vacation, it's OK for a few hours where not everyone is together.
10. On the way out of town we went to the National Cathedral, which isn't a national thing government thing, but a national thing because it's in WA DC. It's not a government church, but an Episcopalian church. I'm glad I didn't know that or we wouldn't have made the effort, but the church is magnificent and I'm so glad we went. It's beautiful and we chatted with a sassy-pants retired teacher docent who had lots of juicy stories to tell of her years as a teacher of diplomats' kids in the school nearby. Delightful.
11. One thing I'm really glad we did was that I made an effort to plan to see the things the kids had studied in school. We did a lot of Woodrow Wilson stops (like the National Cathedral where WW is entombed) because Kid One did a project about him in grade 5. We did a lot of monuments that Kid Two had studied in grade 3.
12. We took a trolley tour on our first night there to see the monuments at night. Our bus driver took us all around downtown DC, not just the monuments route. An expense, but for our family, with jet-lagged kids who didn't want to walk anymore, a good use of our travel budget.
13. Mount Vernon has always been on Eric's bucket list and I didn't even know it, so of course we had to stop. It was fun to compare it with Monticello---two different men, two different lives.
14. I planned our trip itinerary by proximity to eliminate walking (and whining). Smart.
15. Senators and House Reps have great resources on their websites. Some senators even have reserve-able constituent breakfasts. I didn't plan far enough ahead for that, but I'd have liked to have had my kids meet one of actual representatives in the actual place where they represent us. You can also schedule tours through those offices, but I just used the website for our US Capitol tour time and it wasn't a problem.
16. There are some attractions (like the National Archives and Ford's Theater) where you can pay a small fee ($9?) and have a timed entry. For our National Archives exhibit list, this was a good choice even though the line that day wasn't really long.
17. One final note: If you have stroller, you can just walk right into the rotunda at the National Archies and avoid the long waiting line where there are stairs. But the wheelchair/stroller entrance has no line, you just walk right in the exit.
18. We thoroughly enjoyed every tour we went on and wish we'd had time to do more tours. Our kids did OK on those tours and I was prepared for miserable, so it turned out pretty well.
Here was our itinerary:
Day One: Natural History Museum (lunch there), National Archives, Sculpture Garden, Union Station for dinner, Monuments Moonlight Tour
Day Two: Library of Congress (wish we had time to take a tour), US Capitol Tour, quick flyby of the Native American Museum, lunch at Mitsam (buffalo chili!), Air and Space/National Gallery for Deb.
Day Three: National Zoo, lunch there, back in time for an hour at American History, WA Monument and bookstore to get our National Park Passports mega-stamped. Dinner at shops at the Watergate Hotel---the food wasn't very good.
Day Four: Rented a car. National Cathedral, Mount Vernon.
And that was our trip. We barely scratched the surface of all the things we could have done, but it was great and by the end we were tired out.
We won't go back any time soon necessarily, but I'm glad we did it, and even though are kids our younger (as in not teenagers), it was a fun time to travel with them.
