I'm here with Mark from Wolters World and he is a world traveler who's going to tell you about some of the similarities
and differences that he's experienced when traveling in Washington DC.
Hello! Welcome to Trip Hacks DC.
My name is Rob and I am joined with Mark from Wolters World. Mark is a world traveler and he has an amazing YouTube
channel with about
1,500 travel videos right now, so I am just so happy to have him in Washington DC on one of my tours right now
so I can show him around and he's been gracious enough to come on to
the channel so that he can share some of his knowledge and we can give you some information for when you come to Washington DC.
So what is something about Washington DC that you think is similar to another US city that you've traveled to?
Well, I think one has to do with the tourism, because
New York, DC, it's crazy because they both have so many tourists going there; but people are actually going to work every day.
And probably the biggest similarity
I've seen between New York and DC is that
the locals kind of hate the tourists not because they're tourists, but because they get in the way. Like the tourists are walking and then all of a studden
Stop! "Oh, I got to take a picture of this famous thing" and then like the locals like "dude
I'm just trying to get to work man. Would you just stand to the side?" So that is one similarly
I have seen for another U.S. city. So that's a really good point
and that's actually why I
really recommend when people visit Washington DC that they try to plan their day so that they're not riding the Metro during rush hour, because
people here go to work and a lot of people work a nine-to-five job,
so if you're trying to get on the Metro at 7:00 in the morning or 4:00 in the afternoon
there's gonna be a lot of locals on there as well. Yeah and
another thing to mention on that point is that you don't want to treat Washington DC like it's Disney World or Las Vegas
or something like that where people just come to play and party, but there really are a lot of people who live here and have
a life here and work here. And so it's a good mix of that sort of thing.
And that reminds me of another similarity is you have a lot of memorials around town or a lot of museums that can be really
impactful like, I mean we've been to some here where you walk through it you do get goosebumps
and I've had that in other places we've gone around the world and that's one of the things is,
when it's a kind of a somber place
you know, be respectful when you're there, and that's one thing I've seen is you have people think people going for the 'gram in places
where they probably shouldn't be, so that is one thing I've seen that's similar all around the world. So that's another thing to look out for.
So some people say that Washington DC has a different feel than some other American cities, so Mark,
do you think that there's some things about Washington DC that you can compare to someplace outside the US?
Yeah, there's one thing about DC, it has a really different kind of setup than anywhere in the U.S.
like how the streets are set up how the with a roundabouts and things like that
I mean I know driving around here it has that you know, like UK kind of "oh
wait, roundabout, which way do I go?" kind of feel and the thing is those roundabouts,
it's not the only thing to kind of remind me of the UK and travel around there.
Actually, we were down at Mount Vernon, George Washington's place - you guys can check it out
it's really cool day trip - and we were coming back and I'm driving by and I'm like this reminds me of when
we were driving like through the villages and England because there's a lot of that
architectural style is there so you definitely have that so it has a completely different kind of architectural feel and for me
anywhere in the US, I mean, OK
the Capitol you see that the capitals around every place in the U.S., but the feel and the kind of setup is is totally different.
Okay, so let me ask you
what is something about Washington DC that is completely unique that you can't find in any other city in America?
Well, there's kind of two things. I kind of feel one
the museums are free, which is not a common thing, because you go to Chicago
It's you know, $16 or $20 to go to a museum, here
it's free to go in and that's one of the things that for me
it makes it a great family experience because you're not shelling out $100 to take your whole family to a museum,
so that's one thing it's awesome.
Also the Metro here. Look, if you're watching this from outside the US,
we're not big on public transportation in the U.S., but DC they've got it. I mean
I know the locals probably say it's not that great, it's not that's fantastic.
Look, for someone that doesn't have good public metros and good public transportation where I live, this place is awesome for it.
And yes, it's for me it's clean. For me it's efficient. It goes everywhere I want to go.
I'm sure, you're a local, right, you might not agree with me on the cleanliness side of it.
I think there might be some locals who would take issue with that
but I think as a visitor I definitely understand where you're coming from. And that's what I think
is really different.
Like I feel okay going on the Metro, exploring things, and the free nature the stuff
that's one thing that you just don't see it a lot of the U.S. which is really cool when you come here.
So one thing about everything being free that you kind of have to be careful about is to not try
overdo it. Yes. Because when there's over a dozen free museums you think "goodness
I need to go to every single one of them to get my money's worth"
but you don't have to. It's okay to skip some or pick the ones that you really want to do and maybe save some for
a future trip. Yeah, that's the thing especially if you have kids because we got kids with us
and my youngest one, we've gone through the Natural History Museum,
we've done a great tour with Rob here and he's just like "my feet hurt".
You probably see him running behind us somewhere and that is true
don't try to see everything because I really feel like museum burnout kind of thing can really happen here, but the thing is the museums are amazing!
So it's well worth going to but yeah you the burnout is legit here.
So it's something to think about. I've recommended in one of my previous videos that
seven days is actually a good amount of time to plan a trip to Washington DC, which you might think is really really long time,
but just because of the
hugeness of the museums and the various many many things to do many of which are free,
you could definitely fill up that amount of time if you really wanted to. Yeah, and Rob has some really good stuff for seeing stuff
that's not just on the National Mall, exploring out more,
there's all kinds of like like,
normal things to do that aren't just history and museum related which makes DC a really cool place to go. And I think that's it!
Thank you Mark for coming on the video,
I really appreciate you sharing some of your travel knowledge and like I said Mark is a world traveler. He has something like
1,500 travel videos on YouTube right now,
so you should check him out at Wolters World and I will leave a link to that in the video description.
And if you're coming to Washington DC and you want to sign up for a tour with me like Mark's family
did, you can head on over to my website www.triphacksdc.com to see all of the tours that I offer. Top-notch stuff.
Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it. I can't say anything better. The guy's awesome. Thanks. OK bye from DC!