Recently, my teenage daughter Faith and I planned a long weekend trip to Washington, DC. Planning for a weekend trip to DC when you’ve been many times still takes some preparation. It’s probably the 20th visit for me and the 4th for my daughter. Planning a trip to a familiar destination is certainly different than when it’s your first or second time experiencing a city. There’s not nearly the extensive knowledge gathering to get an overview of the area and figure out the sites you can’t miss. But, if you don’t plan at all, you might end up doing the same things you have done in the past, some of which might be fine, but you’ll miss out on really experiencing the city on a deeper level. So, here’s some of what I did to ensure we had a marvelous time exploring DC.
I asked my daughter what she did and did not want to do on this trip. That might seem obvious but in the busyness of life it can be easy to overlook having a conversation with the people you are going with and instead just assume you know what they would want to do again. In our case, my daughter wanted to go back to the American History Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, see monuments and the Library of Congress. She wanted to experience for the first time the National Museum of African American History and Culture and maybe some new Smithsonian’s she hadn’t been to. She always loves to walk and explore a city and eat good food.
Based on her desire to mainly do things on the Mall (where the majority of the Smithsonian Museums and monuments are), I looked for accommodations in that area. You can read about how I decide between a hotel and Airbnb HERE. I found the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill to be less expensive and closer than any Airbnb option. Since there were only two of us staying and it was a short trip, the advantage of a kitchen didn’t make sense. I booked the hotel late last fall when Faith decided a trip to DC was what she wanted for her Christmas present even before I booked our plane tickets. I made sure to pick the booking option with free cancelation in case our dates changed due to a better flight deal.
Many museums and sites across the world now require timed entry tickets. Typically these tickets can be reserved one or two months ahead of time. We hadn’t been able to go to the African American Museum yet because I had never booked tickets in the past. I put a reminder on my calendar and booked the tickets the earliest day I could to make sure we could go. It is currently the only Smithsonian Museum where timed entry tickets are required. Although the Library of Congress also requires tickets which I didn’t realize until we were on our trip. Fortunately I was able to get the tickets the same day we wanted to go. Most museums with timed entry tickets release a few tickets for that day. I set my alarm and made sure I booked them as soon as they were released. Like all Smithsonian and Government buildings, even though we had to get tickets, there was no cost – they are all free!
A few weeks before the trip, I looked through a few guidebooks to get an overview of the city as a whole. I checked these guidebooks out from the library. With all guidebooks I check to make sure I have the most recent info online so it doesn’t really matter if the guidebook is a few years out of date. When you have been somewhere a lot you can get tunnel vision on what there is to do. I had “forgotten” about Georgetown and Embassy Row, which I hadn’t been to since I was in high school. I found the Freer Gallery of Art which has a small delightful collection of art primarily from Asia.
I did some googling. I’m not really sure how people traveled well before the internet! We were going over Presidents Day weekend so I wanted to make sure nothing would be closed that Monday. I also wanted to see if there might be areas we should avoid due to large crowds. While for some people a big parade or celebration goes on their must do list, I do not enjoy large crowds of people. We were the folks that always ran to ride Space Mountain at Disney while the parade was going on. This specific digging let me know that we needed to avoid the National Portrait Gallery on Saturday morning since there was a large family day planned.
I checked the weather the week of our trip (I generally add whatever city we are going to next on my weather app). You know I like to be comfortable! When walking a big city it’s important to be practical and know how to pack. Unfortunately, the weather called for a pretty extreme temperature range while we were there. I won’t bore you with the specifics of each day but the forecast included a 50 degree temperature spread from freezing to warm with rain and gusty winds. Yuck. However, we were fully prepared for the weather while still being able to pack with carry on bags only. Read more on my practical tips for packing light. I knew our first day would be the worst weather and so we planned to visit museums close to our hotel.
I probably spent about four or five hours total planning this trip spaced over months. It made all the difference to enjoying our time in Washington DC.
