I am back from Washington DC and was impressed at how all the institutions have upped their game. Exhibits now use lots of large displays, speakers, touchscreens, and projectors to tell multimedia stories. You’re not merely looking at items mounted to a wall with a text description. If you have not been in the past few years it is worth taking a trip, which is an inexpensive and short plane ride from Boston. Once you get there, there are plenty of activities to fill-up your time over a week.
Where to Stay
We enjoyed basing ourselves out of the Dupont Circle neighborhood. However there are lots of options across the city whether you want an upscale hotel or an affordable AirBnb.
Public Transit Works via Phone App
Like London and New York City, you can load your public transit fare onto your Apple or Android Wallet. This is convenient, but took me a few tries to understand how to line up the phone with the target to work properly every time. Boston visibly has the targets for this system, but continues to delay implementing it.
What We Saw
- Christmas decorations @ The White House
- Julia Child’s Kitchen @ Museum of American History. We spent an hour at the Food Exhibit and did not make it to the rest of the museum.
- The recently renovated Air & Space Museum. Make sure to get free timed passes for this.
- The new U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. We toured the Capitol and saw Sen. Pat Toomey’s farewell speech.
- Museum of African American History
- The Washington Monument
- The Supreme Court
Where We Ate
How Long to Stay
We made a long weekend out of it because that is what we had. But you can easily spend a week or two if you want to fully enjoy each of the museums.