National Archives

The importance of the archives, or more specifically what is contained within them, cannot be overstated; herein lays the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. If the USA has a mission statement, it’s here. Seeing these documents in person is one of those DC experiences that gets even hard-bitten locals to whisper ‘wow.’ The documents are contained in a dimly lit rotunda within a grand neoclassical building. Just before you reach the main event, you’ll see a 1297 version of the Magna Carta, courtesy of Texas billionaire (and former presidential candidate) Ross Perot. Don’t expect to linger over the Big Three (guards make you keep moving) but you can study the Magna Carta and other documents at your leisure. If you use the flash on your camera, you will get yelled at. Also, you’re destroying irreplaceable artifacts of the American experience, which kinda kills the party for the rest of us. The archives themselves preserve reams of essential government documents, from the Louisiana Purchase Treaty to the Emancipation Proclamation. Researchers can access documents from 8:45am to 5pm Monday to Saturday; enter from Pennsylvania Ave.