In this video I'm going to answer some questions that you sent to me on social media.
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 for exploring the city,
make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the bell notification icon so that you don't miss any new videos. And if you're interested
in signing up for a Trip Hacks DC tour, head on over to www.triphacksdc.com
afterwards, to see the tours that I offer. Last month
I asked you to send me questions
over social media for me to answer in this video, and thank you in advance to everyone who submitted a question. If you're not already
following Trip Hacks DC on social media
make sure to check out the video description where I will leave links to all of the social media
handles. With that out of the way, let's get started...
The first question comes from @woltersworld who asks: what should a family of four
(11 and 7 year old boys) do when the kids get bored of monuments and museums burn out?
This is actually a really great question. The monuments and memorials actually don't really take that much time to see. On my
Monuments at Twilight tour, for example, we see all of the major monuments in about three hours on foot.
So if you pick an efficient route or sign up with a professional tour guide
this really shouldn't be too long or boring. Museums on the other hand, can definitely get exhausting.
Remember that while museums are excellent educational opportunities,
they do require a lot of reading and a lot of walking, and the Smithsonian museums in DC are
absolutely massive. You could spend an entire day in each museum if you are really into it.
So one thing that you could do to battle the museum fatigue is to visit museums that have specific and dedicated kids play spaces.
Tina and I mentioned a few of these in our What to Do with Kids in DC video, and I will leave a link to
that in the video description.
We also have a few other good suggestions of things to do with kids
like the National Zoo, a duck tour and some of these splash pads around the city.
The other thing to do is just not to over plan the amount of time you're going to spend in museums.
Yes the museums are all free and I know it can be tempting to try to see all of them during a single trip,
but you really don't have to and you can always save some for the next time. The next question comes from
@stevenson_vicki who says food trucks near the National Mall?
The answer is definitely yes. Food trucks typically line up on both 14th Street near the Washington Monument and
7th Street near some of the museums. You can usually find a variety of different food types everything from hamburgers to
cheesesteaks to kabobs. That said, the quality of the food trucks near the National Mall can be kind of hard to judge.
Probably the easiest way to make a judgement about the food is to simply look at the customers in front of you in line,
what they ordered and whether it looks appealing to you or not; or just find someone who's eating some food that looks good to you
and ask them where they got it.
You can also Google
the name of the truck or look it up on Yelp. One hack is that the best food trucks typically have a pretty good
social media following. @glasshalffullstudio asks, what is the best time of day to see the monuments and memorials? First,
let me say that there is no bad time to see them, but I
personally think that the evening is the best time and let me tell you why. During the summer, the evenings tend to be a bit
cooler and you don't have to be outside
battling the hot sun. Some of them, like the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial
look absolutely stunning at dusk or after dark. If an evening trip isn't in the cards
I also really like to see the monuments in the morning. The museums open at 10:00 a.m
so the hours between about 7:00 and 10:00 tend to be a lot quieter around the monuments and memorials
before the tourists start making their way down to the mall for the day.
So if you're an early bird, this is a great little hack.
@transitandbicyclingfan2018 asks
German restaurants near the National Mall and West Potomac Park? One great thing about DC is that you can find food from just about every
corner of the globe. That said, they are not all equally represented
and there are a lot fewer German restaurants than there are some other types of cuisine. For the typical visitor
I would probably send them to Berlin Cafe (ed note: actually called Cafe Berlin). It's only about four blocks to the east of the Capitol
so it's pretty easy to find and accessible when you're out seeing the sights for the day. And one bonus question from @woltersworld is
do you ever get noticed by tourists visiting DC from your videos? And yes, I certainly do. If you're watching this channel
it's because you're probably coming to DC some time soon
and when you come you'll probably spend a decent amount of time on the National Mall, which is also where I give my tours.
However, it is important to understand that when you see me on the National Mall
I'm there because I'm with a customer
giving a tour. So as much as I would love to stop and chat with everybody who's visiting
I can't really do that because it's not fair to the person who booked me for a tour to have me spending time with someone
else. That said, I'll close out the video with this, if you do want to book me for a tour
you can click on the Capitol dome on the left side of my head which will send you www.triphacksdc.com
where you can see the tours that I offer. And if you want to get more tips and hacks for your trip you can
subscribe to this channel by clicking on the Trip Hacks DC logo, which is popping up right now at the bottom of the screen
Enjoy your trip!