One brief guide to dragging kids through Washington D.C.

with a special appearance by Maryland

I went to college in Washington DC and this year decided the kids were the right age to take them there, especially after I discovered that you can apparently find ancient shark teeth and fossils at nearby Calvert Cliffs State Park in Maryland (beach combing is one of my ADHD kid’s super powers.) I figured that with 3 nights in DC, we could fit in a lot but not overstay, and if we did two nights in Maryland I’d increase our chances we have at least one good day of spring beach weather.

I was far from the only parent who decided spring break 2024 would be a good time to go to DC. It was funny to realize that DC seems to be a rite of passage for many families whose kids have reached a certain age (generally, the age where they can tolerate a longish walk, hold their bladder, use words to define their discomfort, listen to short explanatory speeches, etc) and that you are going through that rite with thousands of other families at the same time. A lot of people have childhood memories of going with their parents or school, and it’s humbling to realize that you’re the tired chaperone now. 

While I have my own sentimental favorite things to do in DC, it was my kids’ first time, so we were starting with a blank slate. Luckily, my college friend Dr. C had recently taken her two kids, who are about the same as mine (ages 8 and 11/12), to town. She shared a few recommendations with me that I wholeheartedly used and want to pass on and add to for witches considering a DC family trip in the future.

This is non-exhaustive/comprehensive by any means and weighed by our kids’ ages and attention span/ability/interest and our budgets, but maybe some of it can still guide your planning. The newsletter’s last “traveling with kids lessons learned” piece was well received, so maybe this will help some of you.

If you’re an American, write your Congressperson’s office now if you haven’t already. The earlier (3-6 months before your trip), the better, contact your state representative and let them know you’re coming to town. They should send you a list of government sites they can get you tickets for so you get into tours faster. If you’re not American I believe you need to go through your embassy. We chose the White House, United States Capitol, and per. Dr C’s recommendation, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (i.e., where they print the paper money), which she said was a surprise hit with her kids and was with ours as well. She told me that the Air & Space Museum and Spy Museum were kind of flops with her family and I was like fine, I’m not dying to go to either and my kids don’t care much about planes or spies, so we won’t.

Find a hotel with a pool and free breakfast if you can. Dr. C recommended the Residence Inn Washington National Mall. Along with a pool/big buffet, having a suite where we could close doors between us and our kids was huge for us. You can order Instacart to the hotel if you do get a place with a kitchenette. It’s built to accommodate families and is pet friendly; I noticed a family with a child in a wheelchair and a service dog who fit in quietly at the breakfast buffet full of families. One hand, this hotel full of free-breakfasting tourist families would probably be some childfree people’s worst nightmare and, on the other hand, it was run perfectly with no major issues and everyone functioned, and it was exactly what we all needed so we were like “This is pretty good!” One night, the hotel had a free hamburger/hot dog dinner, which was the perfect meal—no decisions, no cost—for that night. I was glad for the witches who advised me last year to build in downtime on family trips; My kids were obsessed with playing in the pool and it gave them something to look forward to after long days of doing stuff. I was also glad I didn’t pack a swimsuit because that pool was extremely busy. 😬

They really mean it when they say no bags at the White House. I didn’t read that part of the small print closely and had to go check my bag at the hotel across the street which had some dumb malfunctioning QR check code system in place. If you’re going to the White House, don’t be like me.

Do not go to the White House if you have kids who cannot stand in line for a long time. My kids made it through the hour-ish long wait (even with a ticketed entry), but they did bitch and moan about it quite a bit, even after we explained why it’s really important for everyone to go through a lot of security and not all go in all at once especially when Joe Biden is actually working in the Oval Office that day, which he was. My kids had a ton of questions about what happens if you break into the White House yet would clam up and not talk at all every time we went by a Secret Service agent (all incredibly nice) and said “Look! This person can answer your questions!”

Do a trolley/bus tour if feasible. We didn’t have this planned initially until my friend

Elizabeth Gomez

saw from my Instagram that we were in DC and kindly hooked us up with passes to her brother’s company Old Town Trolley Tours. She did this just to be nice but I want to recommend the experience because you forget how sprawling the monuments can be if you’re on foot. We hopped on at the end of a rainy afternoon and a very kindly retired English teacher driver chaperoned us around, pointing out some memorials we probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Our kids (and we) were pretty zonked by the time we got on, so it was nice to simply sit for a while. I packed some apples and cookies for the ride. Again, shout out to the last travel issue: I knew to pack a few ziploc bags for the trip thanks to helpful witches.

Get into museums late, not early. Since we had so much planned already in terms of government sites, we went easy on museums, except for the Museum of Natural History because my third grade son had taken the time to write down the destination of the giant squid he wanted to check out:

We were going to try to get in early on the third day of our trip, which was aggressively rainy, but our cab driver warned us that there was a blocks-long line to get in, so we pivoted and went to Georgetown instead, where I went to college. I had a feeling my kids wouldn’t give much of a rat’s ass about seeing my college campus so I figured we’d do a quick tour in the rain. Later, our trolley tour dropped us off a few blocks from the museum about 45 minutes before closing. Since we had one precise thing we wanted to see, we didn’t care about having a short amount of time in the museum. This time, there was no wait since people were starting to leave. We saw the squid and more.

Don’t get tricked into the Wharf. My friend Dr. C warned us against taking our kids to this touristy part of town and we forgot about her advice and the exact same thing happened to my husband who randomly ended up buying himself and my sons an expensive Spanish tapas meal when they couldn’t get into a more kid-friendly place. As Dr. C told me, “We did try this arcade/bar/restaurant in the Wharf which is this crazy busy party area and it sucked!!  So if something similar shows up on a list of kid friendly restaurants, don’t be fooled.”

Visit your Representative’s office in person if you’re by the Capitol. My friend Liz, another college friend, worked in her Representative’s office after graduating so I knew it the Representative’s office’s job to welcome constituents. My family, including my husband, were apprehensive about just walking into the government building and finding our Congressperson’s office. It was really gratifying (to me) when we were welcomed in and could see the Capitol through our Representative’s window and get barked at by the tiny dog who lived there:

Jack in Jan Schakowsky’s office

(Congress was on recess so we didn’t meet our Representative herself though.) Also, I could leave my purse there for free when we toured the Capitol, and the office gave us gallery passes so we could show the boys where the State of the Union takes place, which they were legitimately impressed by.

• A friend from DC recommended We the Pizza for lunch, and it was a nice, straightforward place to eat before our Capitol tour¹.
  

Park for free at Arlington Cemetery if you have family there. My uncle is buried at Arlington and when my aunt learned we were going to DC she gave me her parking pass and a map of where he was interred. We had rented a car for the Maryland portion of the trip and drove it to the cemetery to spend the last afternoon before we returned home. It was nice to visit Uncle Bob and for the boys to get a feel for the vastness of Arlington. We saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the marine there guarding the tomb yelled at someone who was talking. It was kind of witchily nice to have my 8 year old see that after he kicked my husband earlier for telling him to take off his baseball cap. Arlington is one mile from the Lincoln Memorial and we walked it so the kids could see it up close and get the amazing view of the Washington Monument in the reflecting pond.

Spend time apart.

Sarah Wheeler

advised this in a thread about international family travel advice but it holds for domestic too: it’s good not to spend all the time together if you can help it.As I said, tons of families were in DC the same week as us, including two families we know from Chicago. Twice I went out to dinner with DC pals and my husband took the kids out with other friends. It made the days easier to know I’d be off the clock those nights and my husband would do his own thing the night I didn’t have plans.

Without my approval, my husband let my 11 year old son ride one of those rental electric scooters at the Mall while they were picking up the rental car and it was one of the highlights of the trip for him. But don’t tell his little brother. 

Shark teeth are hard to spot! In Maryland we hired a guy to tell us about fossils and help us look for shark teeth at the beach (don’t forget to check the tide charts, you inland folks). I’m glad we did this so we had someone to patiently tell us most things we brought to his attention were fossilized barnacles. My 8 year old was the only one to find a tooth on his own which was appropriate since he looked the hardest, even though the water was still March-cold. He hugged me at one point and thanked me for organizing the trip, and we met several people who were very good at finding teeth and generous with sharing theirs so it was just a generally pleasant time among nature and kindly folks, outside but not strenuous.

So obviously that was just a sample of one family’s time. I know there was a lot we didn’t take them to that I hope we can in the future. From our experience it was a town very friendly to kids; so many government people offered kids stickers or a game to play or had a little friendly comment about my kid’s Bears jersey.

If you’ve taken your kids to Washington D.C. since the pandemic and had success stories you think other witches can learn from, please share them!

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One witchy thing

1. Funny how actual tourists of the Capitol, even with young children, have to wait in a lot of lines and go through a lot of security checks.