We got to be the President’s Neighbor! 3 days and 3 kids in Washington DC

We absolutely love visiting Washington, DC! I visited several times as a child. Garrett's first trip was for our 2nd anniversary, and now we got to bring the kiddos for their first trip to our nation's capitol.

Day 1

In Washington D.C. we stayed at the Capitol Hilton and I highly recommend it! We wrote an email to the hotel a couple weeks before our trip asking if there were any available upgrades. They responded with a couple different upgrade options and were so helpful. With their guidance, we were upgraded to a junior suite. The hotel doesn’t have free breakfast but there was plenty of room to eat breakfast in our room. The hotel is 2 blocks from the White House. Walking out the front door of our hotel and looking down the street at the president’s front door was a great experience every morning.

We rode the Metro from our hotel to start our trip off with a tour of the US Capitol. Our 9-year old wrote our Congressmen and Senators to request a tour. Most of them have a place on their website to request tours. When you schedule tours with interns instead of through the Capitol you get to start the tour in their office building and then take the underground tunnels to get to the capitol which is pretty cool. We went with the office that sent us the most personalized email and talked about our kids. We ended up with a private tour from an intern. She was wonderful and catered the tour to our kids! I have done this tour 3 times and it is one of my favorite things to do in Washington DC. My 7-year old read every president biography that she could get her hands on before the trip. I”m not sure who learned more from the tour, the 7-year old or the intern. It made it really fun for everyone to watch them go back and forth with facts.

Just a few blocks from the capitol is We the Pizza and Good Eats. The kids had pizza and the adults had burgers. It was pretty good, close by, and quick.

Next up was the Library of Congress. It does require a timed entry ticket. Because we were there in the late fall the availability was wide open. Our 4th grader was so excited for this self-guided tour and it was her biggest disappointment. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that we went to a library and couldn’t even touch the books. We should have done a better job prepping her for this. Lesson learned. However, the rest of the crew loved the Library of Congress. They had a great kids’ activity book as well as super kind and helpful guides and volunteers all over. The architecture of the building is incredible. I think this is a sneaky great place to spend an hour or two inside.

Next we took a lap through the United States Botanic Gardens and it was a highlight for most of us. Disclaimer: every person in my family loves plants… including the 5 year old. The folks at the Gardens had just set out their mini replicas of the monuments and buildings around DC. The minis are all made completely of plant materials. Honestly, they are amazing and definitely worth seeing for plant lovers and regular humans alike. They also have a train that they put up for Christmas but it wasn’t up until Thanksgiving day so we didn’t get to see it. I would go back to the Botanic Gardens again and again and again.

From there we meandered on down to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, which also requires a timed-entry ticket. I think our kids were pretty tired at this point. We let them guide us through the museum and we moved through pretty quick. We were all looking for a place to sit down and there is no seating in this museum except hard benches next to the bathrooms that were full the entire time we were there. We did find a few benches tucked away in a kids play area in the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight section. The kids were excited to be able to play for a minute and the grown-ups were excited to sit down.

We had a bus tour scheduled for the evening which we were supposed to meet at the Washington DC Welcome Center. The welcome center happens to be right next to an &Pizza location (this has been one of our favorite pizza places) so that made dinner easy. On the way we stopped at the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We got there 15 minutes before they closed and we couldn’t have planned that better. This is another one of the places that I have been to several times and it has always been a long wait to see the Declaration of Independence in a room packed with 8th graders. This time around we were some of the only people in there. The best part was watching the security guard get caught off guard when the 7-year old asked her if they stole the real Declaration or a prop in the movie National Treasure.

I LOVE a good DC night tour. I think it is a great way to see a lot of the memorials, get to know some fun DC history, and there is something just plain magical about seeing them lit up. There are a lot of different tour options and I honestly have never experienced a bad tour. We usually just go with the most affordable option here. For this trip we booked with Trolley Tours (called Monuments by Moonlight). Unfortunately we probably overscheduled our first day by about 1 mile and our poor kids were exhausted. We got to bed late the night before, we were in a different time zone, and we had already walked over 10 miles (according to my kid’s Gabb watch). We watched the kids power down as the tour went on with the kindergartener even falling asleep between a couple of the stops. The bus stopped at several of the memorials and you can get off and check them out. They also dropped us off about a block from our hotel!

Day 2

We were going to start the day at the White House Visitor Center but opted to try The People’s House museum instead because it was closer to our hotel. Admission is free but there is an option to give a donation. It was a very hands-on museum and we could have spent several hours here. They have a photo machine that will digitally place you at several different popular photo spots for the White House. I think the kids could have spent half the day just taking photos. There is also a replica of the Oval Office where the kids can sit at the president’s desk, answer the president’s phone, sit on the couches, you name it. That was honestly really cool. In my opinion, this is better than an actual White House tour for younger kids. We are big fans of hands-on museums.

On our way to the next stop, we took some photos in front of the White House in Lafayette Park and ate lunch at the food court in the Ronald Reagan building. It was nice to have a lot of options and everyone could get what they wanted.

Another one of my favorites in DC, is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The funny thing is that it is not talked about much on social media or travel sites as far as we have seen. It has been a great tour and I’ve done it at least 3 times in my life. We got extra lucky this time because our tour guide used to be an elementary school teacher. He talked mostly to the kids and had them engaged the whole 90 minutes! What a feat! This tour is definitely underrated and underappreciated in my humble but correct opinion. After the tour, the gift shop is small but you can get uncut bills which is pretty cool.

Before we left on our trip our kids decided that they really wanted to go to the International Spy Museum. They did extra chores to earn money because this is one of the few paid museums in DC. Thankfully, it lived up to their expectations. It is a really well done museum and was engaging for everyone from the adults all the way down to our 5 year old. You can ask for a family guide at the front desk before you start and it has a map that shows where all of the interactive activities that kids will enjoy throughout the museum.

There is also a food court right outside of the museum so we shared a 3 entree meal at Panda Express. We finished off the night by riding the Metro back to our hotel because it was dark and we were pretty tired. Oh and we had to have some ramen noodles and pb&j in our hotel room because the 5-year old was "STILL HUNGRY!"

Day 3

Planet Word is another underrated museum. They ask for a donation to this museum but you can reserve your tickets for free and then leave a donation if you choose when you get there. This museum was pretty simple in comparison to traditional museums but it packs a punch. I don’t think there was an exhibit that we didn’t love. My husband is a Speech-Language Pathologist so I wanted to go to this museum because I thought he would love it but would never make us go somewhere just for him. Every single one of us loved this museum including the 5 year old who is just starting to learn to sound out words. In fact, we had to drag the kids (and my husband) away from each exhibit. It was way fun!

This is probably a good time to mention that we wanted to rent a car when we left DC but it was actually cheaper for us to rent it when we first flew in and then pay to park it near our hotel than it was to wait and rent it when we were leaving DC. We have a Capital One Venture X card and, so far, it has been significantly cheaper to rent cars through the Capital One travel portal than anywhere else.

After Planet Word we jumped in the car and drove to the Gaylord Hotel in Alexandria. We parked in a parking garage across the street from the hotel because it was cheaper. The hotel is decorated beautifully for Christmas and they have an ice exhibit for Christmas. This year the theme was the Polar Express and it was pretty amazing. They give you parkas when you go in and trust me when I say it was not enough. I would highly recommend dressing warm with gloves and a hat in addition to the parka. It is COLD in there! If we were doing it again I would wear two pairs of pants and my own jacket in addition to the parka they provide. The exhibit is pretty expensive (and shorter than I expected) but since almost everything else we did was free we felt like it was worth it. We were also able to find a Groupon deal that saved us a significant amount of money.

On the way back into the city we stopped at A.Litteri for dinner. This was hands down our favorite meal in DC. The food was good but the experience was the best part. As we were getting closer we got a little nervous about how safe the area was but we started to see a lot of college kids so we took a chance. The deli is in the back of an Italian grocery store. It is not a place that we would have EVER tried to go into if we didn’t know about it ahead of time. The sandwiches were delicious and the price was even better. 10/10 would go back. They also make simple pastas (including butter noodles for the picky people) and salads.