One of the main reasons tourists go to the United States Capital is to see the monuments and museums and everything else in between. I tried to post every day but there is so much to see and do that by the time I would get back to the hotel I was so exhausted that the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of my laptop so I will be posting my pictures for D.C at spread out intervals throughout this week. But before I put up and photos from my adventures I feel the need to point out things I’ve learned on this vacation.

D.C Tips and tricks

1. Take the metro!
   • It is one of the most affordable means of transportation and goes pretty much everywhere you would want to visit. You can get a day pass for $14.50 but you can only use that card on one day so we actually decided to get a ‘SmartTrip’ card and put 20$ on it and we used that for the course of our trip and even had some money left over at the end. We’re keeping the cards in case we go back at some point.
   • DO NOT take the metro between the hours of 7AM-9:30AM and 5PM-7PM you have to keep in mind that while YOU might be vacationing everyone else is not and unless you want to stand for the course of your subway ride (which believe me the locals make it look a LOT easier than it really is) you want to avoid these rush hour times.
2. Wear comfortable shoes.
   • Believe me this is a must. We knew we would be walking a lot but we didn’t realize exactly how much. I have a fitbit now so I can tell you the first day we walked 7 miles and then after that every day was over 10miles worth of walking (~25,000 steps) so you definitely want to wear comfy shoes.
3. Less Bags = Faster Entry
   • Every Smithsonian/National Museum has airport like security when you enter, your bag could be searched by a security guard or you will have to put it through an X-Ray machine just like airport security. The Holocaust museum even makes you sip any drinks that are open to prove that it is really water. If you don’t have a bag they let you go right though the big detector. If you’re traveling with a buddy like I was we ended up getting a backpack and then putting both of our things in there to get through the security lines faster.
4. Look for Groupon deals, especially the hotel!
   • I was lucky enough to find my hotel deal on Groupon but I didn’t realize exactly how much it saved me until I got there. Many of the hotels can charge you for parking as well, in our case we stayed at the Sheraton in Arlington City and parking was $24 a night and the WiFi was also an additional charge. The Groupon deal covered all of these charges including the room fee. It saved us a lot of money!

That’s all I have at the moment if I think of some other things I learned I will definitely add them to this list. If anyone’s planning a trip to the D.C area and has any questions let me know!