Washington, DC
This beautiful park 9 miles northwest of downtown has a huge carousel (per ride $1.25, operating May through September) and children’s shows by the Puppet…
Washington, DC
This beautiful park 9 miles northwest of downtown has a huge carousel (per ride $1.25, operating May through September) and children’s shows by the Puppet…
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
Also known as Mt St Sepulchre, the monastery offers serene grounds with 42 acres of tulips, dogwoods, cherry trees, roses – and some peculiar re-creations…
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
The largest Catholic house of worship in North America can host 6000 worshippers. It is an enormous, impressive, but somehow unimposing edifice, more…
Washington, DC
Devoted to architecture and urban design, the museum is housed in a magnificent 1887 edifice modeled after the Renaissance-era Palazzo Farnese in Rome…
Washington, DC
The regional headquarters of the Scottish Rite Freemasons, also known as the House of the Temple, is one of the most eye-catching buildings in the…
National Museum of Health and Medicine
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
Macabre exhibits galore pack this Department of Defense–run museum. The stomach-shaped hairball leaves a lasting impression (a 12-year-old girl ate THAT?)…
Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument
Washington, DC
This brick house, only steps from the US Capitol, may not look like much, but throughout the 20th century it was ground zero for women fighting for their…
Georgetown
This 24-acre, obelisk-studded cemetery contains winding walks and 19th-century gravestones set into the hillsides of Rock Creek. It’s a fantastic spot for…
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
Washington, DC
Escaped slave, abolitionist, author and statesman Frederick Douglass occupied this beautifully sited hilltop house from 1878 until his death in 1895…
Bureau of Engraving & Printing
Washington, DC
Cha-ching! The nation's paper currency is designed and printed here. Guides lead 40-minute tours during which you peer down onto the work floor where…
Daughters of the American Revolution Museum
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
This neoclassical behemoth is supposedly the largest complex of buildings in the world owned exclusively by women. They own the entire city block! Enter…
National Museum of African Art
Washington, DC
Enter the museum’s ground-level pavilion through the Enid A Haupt Garden, then descend into the dim underground exhibit space. Devoted to ancient and…
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
History buffs can make the trek to President Lincoln's summer house tucked away on the grounds of the Soldiers' Retirement Home. Abe came here to beat the…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
This gem is the country’s only textile museum. Galleries spread over two floors hold exquisite fabrics and carpets. Exhibits revolve around a theme – say…
Washington, DC
The ‘Eighth and Eye Marines’ are on largely ceremonial duty at the nation’s oldest Marine Corps post. Most famously, this is the home barracks of the…
Department of the Interior Museum
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
Responsible for managing the nation’s natural resources, the Department of the Interior operates this small museum to educate the public about its current…
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
DC was built on a marsh, a beautiful, brackish, low-lying ripple of saw grass and steel-blue water, wind-coaxed and tide touched by the inflow of the…
Washington, DC
Constitution Gardens is a bit of a locals’ secret. Quiet, shady and serene, it’s a reminder of the size of the Mall – how can such isolation exist amid so…
Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle
Washington, DC
The sturdy redbrick exterior doesn’t hint at the marvelous mosaics and gilding within this 1893 Catholic cathedral, where JFK was laid in state and his…
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
The Mexican Cultural Institute looks locked up and imposing, but don't be deterred. The gilded beaux-arts mansion is open to the public and hosts…
National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden
Washington, DC
This 6-acre garden is studded with whimsical sculptures such as Roy Lichtenstein’s House I (1998), a giant Claes Oldenburg typewriter eraser (1999) and…
Washington, DC
Although only a stone’s throw from the National Mall, for tourists, East Potomac Park may as well be in Siberia. The pleasant, green, cherry-blossom-lined…
Washington, DC
The Smithsonian’s cylindrical art museum shows works from modernism’s early days to today's most cutting-edge practitioners. Exhibitions of works drawn…
Georgetown
Built in 1766 in what was then the British colony of Maryland, the capital's oldest surviving building has been a tavern, a brothel and a boardinghouse …
African American Civil War Museum
Logan Circle, U Street & Columbia Heights
Set in an old schoolhouse behind the African American Civil War Memorial, the museum makes the point that for some, the Civil War was about secession…
Washington, DC
This Georgian-revival mansion offers guided hour-long tours focusing on the 28th president’s life and legacy. Genteel docents discuss highlights of Wilson…
Georgetown
Georgetown is one of the nation's top universities, with a student body that's equally hard-working and hard-partying. Founded in 1789, it was America’s…
Ford’s Theatre Center for Education & Leadership
Washington, DC
Across the street from the famous theater where Abraham Lincoln was shot, the center holds a gift shop on its 1st floor, as well as a 34ft tower of…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
Part of the Smithsonian group, the Renwick Gallery is set in a stately 1859 mansion on the same block of Pennsylvania as the White House. It's emerged as…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
Getting inside the White House can be difficult, so here is your back-up plan. Housed in the splendiferous 1932 Patent Search Room of the Department of…
Washington, DC
After being shot at Ford’s Theatre, Lincoln was carried across the street to Petersen House. Its three tiny, unassuming rooms create a moving personal…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
The headquarters of the American diplomatic corps is a forbidding, well-guarded edifice – modernist, monolithic and unfriendly. In stark contrast are the…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
Made up of approximately 2000 members, including almost 200 Nobel Prize winners, these are the folks the government hits up for scientific advice (whether…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
The expansive, oval-shaped park on the White House's south side is known as the Ellipse. It's studded with a random collection of monuments, such as the…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
Built in 1887, St Mary’s was home to the first black Episcopal congregation in DC, which was established in 1867. James Renwick, designer of the…
White House Area & Foggy Bottom
Designed in 1818 by Benjamin Latrobe for naval hero Stephen Decatur and his wife Susan, this brick building holds the honor of being the first and last…
Washington, DC
Fans of Morning Edition and All Things Considered can see where the magic happens at National Public Radio's ecofriendly headquarters. Hour-long tours…
Washington, DC
The museum at National Geographic Society headquarters can’t compete with the Smithsonian’s more extensive offerings, but it can be worth a stop,…
Georgetown
This 1816 neoclassical mansion was owned by Thomas Peter and Martha Custis Peter, the granddaughter of Martha Washington, and lived in by six generations…
Washington, DC
It won't come to fruition until late 2019 or so, but keep an eye on the space at 11th St SE and the Anacostia River. The city is converting the piers from…