Washington DC with Kid(s)

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Washington DC with each of my three girls when they were roughly 10 years old.  These vacations were father-daughter getaways (see related post titled “Father – Son/Daughter Getaways“).  Below is a collection of the notes I took during those three visits to share with other family members and friends.  Double check any information that mentions when/how to get tickets or days/times the site is open.  Things easily could have changed over the years.

Sites to Consider Visiting (with my kids’ favorites marked in bold text)

• Bureau of Engraving & Printing
• White House
• Mount Vernon
• US Capitol
• Ford’s Theater
• Smithsonian Institute
  • Air and Space Museum
  • American History Museum
  • National History Museum
• Memorials
  • Jefferson
  • Lincoln
  • Vietnam Veterans
  • Korean War
  • Theodore Roosevelt
  • Iwo Jima
  • World War II

• National Archives
• Washington Monument
• Old Post Office
• Arlington Cemetery
• International Spy Museum
• Union Station
• Supreme Court
• US Holocaust Museum

US Capitol

• Ticket line for tours opens at 9:00am (confirm) at one of the corners of the Capitol complex (confirm).  You stand in line to get tickets for a particular tour time that day.
• The line moves pretty fast.  If you arrive by 9:00am, you will likely get a tour time that morning.
• Don’t take food or drinks
• Pay attention to the latest rules about cameras.  They might be allowed but just not used in certain parts of the Capitol building.

White House

• Tours are only possible via pre-arrangement.  Don’t just show up and hope to get tickets.
• Request VIP Pass from your State Representative’s office.  Do so 2-3 months in advance but don’t expect a commitment until just a couple of weeks before the trip (maybe for security reasons).
• Get in line at the White House 15-20 minutes before the appointed tour time.
• Make sure you are in the right line.  There is a short one and a long one, depending on the type of pass you get.
• Before taking the tour, go to the White House Visitor’s Center close by.  There’s a good 20 min educational video.  The actual White House tour is self-guided, so the video is very helpful.

Bureau of Engraving & Printing

• Very cool tour.  You get to see paper currency being printed.
• Regular tour tickets are given out on the 16^th street side (confirm), which is the opposite side from the main entrance
• For the 9:00am tour (which is the first one), you should get in line around 8:20am
• You can also request a VIP Pass from your State Representative’s office.  If you get one, you can get in line on the 14^th street side for tickets, which is considerably shorter.  The tour is the same.

Holocaust Memorial

• Obviously not an uplifting site to visit.  Fairly powerful and sobering.  Make sure your child is mature enough to handle it.
• Must get tickets first for a specific time (confirm)
• If after getting your tickets you have time to kill before your tour, you can walk to the Jefferson Memorial nearby and then walk back.  It’s roughly a 1 hour round trip if you spend about 30 minutes at the memorial.

National Archives

• The line to get in is huge.  Show up early before opening time.
• Once you get inside there is another long line (20+ min) to see the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.  You only get to stare at each document for about 1 minute before being shuffled along.
• There is a whole set of exhibits upstairs with some cool stuff to see and do

Air & Space Museum

• Very cool visit.  The lines to get in the space capsule and other cool exhibits can be 20-30 min each.
• There is an IMAX theater inside and you can get tickets ahead of time online and avoid a very long ticket line.

Mount Vernon

• Very cool but plan for the total round trip to take a full half-day
• You can get there via metro and bus via the following route (confirm on the Mt Vernon website):
  • Take the Yellow Line to Huntington
  • Take the Fairfax Connector Bus 101 to Mount Vernon (25 min ride)
    • The bus only departs every hour, so get the schedule online and try to make sure you don’t reach the Huntington station 5-10 min after the previous bus departed or you’ll be waiting a while for the next one
    • The bus is only $1 each way (confirm) but exact change is required
    • A new on-site education center was built in 2005 and is excellent.  As part of the experience, spend 30-60 minutes there.  Can do this at the end and time the duration of the visit in the center to the return bus schedule.
    • The line to see Washington’s house is 30-40 minutes but it’s a great tour.  You spend 20-30 minutes in the house.  For the other parts of the Mount Vernon property/grounds, you can just walk around on your own.

Old Post Office – it’s a mall inside but pretty cool.  Can drop in and grab lunch.

Union Station – there’s retail and restaurants inside (food court on bottom floor).  Good place to grab lunch.

The following sites are good to visit on Sunday because other things aren’t open

• Mount Vernon, Arlington Cemetery , Lincoln Memorial, all the war memorials

Other Advice:

• Use the metro as much as possible.  It even goes to the airport.  Put $10-20 on each metro card and recharge as needed.
• Staying at a hotel within walking distance of the National Mall is great for proximity reasons.  As an alternative, try to stay near within 2-3 blocks of a metro stop.
• Plan each day in half-day groupings of places to visit.  To avoid wasted time between sites, try to stick to a certain geographical vicinity during each half-day.  For example, the following sites can easily be grouped:
  • Jefferson Memorial, Bureau of Engraving & Printing and the Holocaust Museum
  • White House, the Washington Monument, American History Museum, National Aquarium and the Old Post Office
  • War Memorials and the Lincoln Memorial
  • US Capitol, Supreme Court and Union Station