The monuments and memorials are MUST SEEs on any trip to Washington DC
Stick around for my seven tips to get the most out of them.
HELLO! welcome to Trip Hacks DC, my name is Rob. I'm a tour guide here in the nation's capital.
If you're coming to Washington DC and you're looking for the best tips, tricks, and hacks please make sure to subscribe to this this channel
so that you don't miss anything. And if you're coming
and you're interested in a personalized tour experience you can check out my website
TripHacksDC.com at the end of this video to see what I offer.
If you come to Washington DC before and you have any favorite tips or hacks for seeing the monuments and memorials leave a comment on this video.
Otherwise let's get started.
1. See the monuments in the morning or at night.
Every local knows that it's infinitely better to see the monuments and memorials
after dark at night than it is during the day. That said, I think the morning is a
fantastic time to see them as well. Most museums open at 10:00 a.m.
and the national mall is actually very peaceful and relaxing in those hours
beforehand. In my experience the National Mall is generally the busiest between about noon and 3:00 in the afternoon
which is also when the hottest and generally least pleasant. If you can buck the trend you can have a much improved experience.
The Trip Hacks DC tours that I offer are in the morning and in the evening because I really do believe that this is the best
time to see the monuments and memorials.
2. Eat before you go and don't forget to bring water.
The National Mall is not exactly the part of the city known for having very
good dining options. There are a few diamonds in the rough, and I'll cover those in another video.
It's probably best to just eat before you come down to the National Mall. If you're coming in the morning
wake up and have yourself a big breakfast.
If you're coming in the evening
find some dinner first. And remember to bring water with you whether that's bottled water or a refillable water bottle on a hot summer day
you're absolutely going to want to bring that stay hydrated.
Water fountains on the National Mall are infamous for being broken all the time. To be honest sometimes
I'm even surprised when I find one that's actually working but then I go back to being frustrated when I realize that the water is
warm and the pressure is so low that I can't even fill up the bottle that I brought with me.
There are a few hot dog stands and food trucks and other places around the national mall where you can buy a bottle of water but
generally speaking it's easiest if you just come prepared.
3. Sign up for a guided tour.
I'm not just saying this because I'm a tour guide and I'm trying to sell you a tour.
I really do believe this is the best way to see the monuments and memorials.
I used to actually be the kind of person who scoffed at the idea of paying for a tour
figuring I could just wander around the site and see everything on my own.
But now I always seek out guided tours when I travel to a new city.
Sometimes I even take more than one to get a couple of different experiences.
There are no shortage of tour options. There are walking tours, bike tours,
segway tours, bus tours, boat tours.. you name
it. There are private tours like the ones I offer, which are limited to a single group; and then on the other end of the
spectrum there are things like "pay what you want" tours which are open to everybody, often don't even require a
reservation, and you can pay what you want at the end of the tour. Or if you're interested in a bike tour or a segway
tour as an alternate form of transportation that's an option too.
I'll leave a link in the description and a promo code so you can save a little money if you choose that option.
4. Download the National Mall app.
if you decide not to go the guided tour route then having the national mall app on your phone will
be a big help. And while you're downloading things you can check out my video with seven other must-have apps for your trip to Washington.
The most useful thing about the national mall app is that it shows you the location
of all the sites you might want to see on a map and it also shows you some of the other monuments that you might
not even know you want to see. You can use the app to click on any of the sites so that when you go to
the Washington Monument
Or the Lincoln Memorial you can learn a little bit about it in addition to getting your awesome selfie.
5. Figure out the most efficient routes.
On a map the monuments memorials all kind of look pretty close to each other,
but if you do want to see them all you're going to wind up doing a lot of walking. The walking tours that I offer cover
ten monuments memorials and it's about three miles from start to finish and that's using the most efficient route possible.
So if you don't plan ahead you can wind up walking over five miles or even worse
not seeing everything because you got to be tired.
So if you're not going to take a guided tour at least do yourself a favor and grab a map in advance and plan out
Your route of the day.
6. Take advantage of public transportation.
No, in this case
I'm actually not talking about Metro. In 2015 DC launched a Circulator bus route on the National Mall
It's a big red bus it's very easy to spot
It has stops at Union Station, the museums, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the MLK Memorial,
and the Lincoln Memorial; so it covers just about everything. The best thing about it
Is that it only costs $1 to ride and you can use the SmarTrip card
that you bought to ride the metro to pay for your rides so you don't even have to worry about carrying around a bunch of
single dollar bills. I'll leave a link in the description with some more information about the Circulator and how to ride it.
But plenty of people do skip over some other really cool monuments like the Albert Einstein
Memorial. Or the DC
War memorial. A few of my personal favorites include the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial and the George Mason Memorial.
It's not even like these are really off the beaten path
they're right there on the National Mall it just tends to be overshadowed by the bigger and more popular memorials
I'll leave some links in the description so that you can look them up and check them out.
And that's it!
Thank you for watching this video if you found it helpful you can subscribe to the channel by clicking on the Trip Hacks DC logo
that's popping up at the bottom of your screen.
And if you're looking for a cool
personalized tour experience you can click on the Capitol dome that's popping up on the left side of my head
That'll take you to my website TripHacksDC.com where you can check out the tours that I offer.
Enjoy your trip!