Art. ICold can shorten an outing. It can't ruin the vacation.
If it's 28° and windy at the Korean War Memorial, we call an Uber XL, get warm, and reshuffle. Nobody pushes through misery to check a box.
I. Getting there
The train is the trip.
No airport. No rental car. We board the Amtrak Crescent in Anniston after Bart gets off work, settle into two sleeper rooms across the hall from each other, sleep through Georgia and the Carolinas, and wake up in Virginia. Sunday afternoon we roll into Union Station, three blocks from the Capitol.
Train
From
To
When
Crescent 20Northbound
Anniston, AL
Washington Union Station
Overnight2 sleeper rooms
Crescent 19Southbound
Washington Union Station
Anniston, AL
Overnight2 sleeper rooms
- Your own room on a train. Beds fold down, the window is yours, and somebody brings dinner to you.
- Evening boarding. Anniston lets us leave at a civilized hour instead of waiting up past midnight in Atlanta.
- Home base on the Mall. We're aiming for L'Enfant Plaza, a short walk from Air & Space, Natural History, and the Washington Monument, with a one-seat Metro ride to Arlington.
II. Nine days, one big thing a day
The week.
Every day gets one real adventure, and the day and night are balanced so nobody gets wrecked. Big museum day? Easy night. Easy afternoon? That's when we go out and see the memorials glow. LO easy · MID a real outing · HI the whole battery. A HI day gets an easy night.
What's been decided
Tradeoffs
III. Why this trip
We're doing it properly.
We're probably only doing this once, so we picked the A-list and gave every one of them the time it deserves. Thirteen things every American should see. All on the schedule.
- U.S. Capitol
- Library of Congress
- Air and Space Museum
- Natural History Museum
- American History Museum
- Declaration, Constitution & Bill of Rights
- The White House
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- Korean War Veterans Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Arlington National Cemetery
- Christmas in Washington
Still on the board
Everything we know about, ranked by how much we'd regret missing it, that isn't in this version. The planner schedules the core trip on its own; these are yours to add. Ask for one and it finds room if it can, or tells you what it would cost.
Punted
IV. How we keep it fun
House rules.
Art. IIThis is not a death march.
One big thing a day. Museum closing time is not a challenge to be defeated. When the family is full, we leave, and the day still counts as a win.
Art. IIISpend the twenty bucks.
Metro when it's convenient, walking when the walk is nice, and a car the second it saves a thousand cold steps at the end of the day. We're not here to win a transit efficiency contest.
Art. IVWe stay together.
One family unit, the whole week. Every day has something worth doing, and the difficulty is budgeted across the whole day so all four of us can do all of it.
Leave Washington feeling like we actually saw Washington, without needing a vacation from the vacation.