On the same weekend I'm meeting my boyfriend's son for the first time, we'll all be driving down to DC for his award ceremony (he's a smart kid) in DC. Anybody been to DC before as a tourist? Know any good places to eat or things to see?

So far, I've come up with four major things to see...
Smithsonian
The White House
Capitol Hill
Lincoln Memorial

I've driven through DC to get to Virginia Beach and Petersburg, but never stopped to see anything there. Am I missing anything from my list???

The Holocaust Museum, but from what I've heard it's an all day thing and, of course, it's terribly sad.

The Smithsonian is several museums. You'll need to narrow down which ones you want to visit.

If you walk around the tidal basin you'll see a lot of the memorials, you can rent bikes also.

Oh and the US Treasury is fun, you can watch them make money. But it's only open Monday-Friday.

The Holocaust Museum is very depressing.
Sarah in MD

Arlington National Cemetery---watch the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soliders---very cool.

The FDR monument
Iwo Jima monument
Vietnam Memorial

Oh, forgot to add that there are some good restaurants in the DuPont Circle area. We went to a Tapas bar & they had great food and mojitos.

a lil piece of advice - there is so much to see and never enough time so after this short trip you will want to go back again to see what you missed last time.

The National Zoo!! I haven't been there in years, but from what a remember, parking is free, you pay a little for admission...or the other way around? Anyway, I remember it being a fabulous zoo!

Great ideas everyone!!!! OK now I have all of my notes down so now it's decision making time!!! Thanks!!!

Anybody know if there is a mall downtown D.C.?

The holocaust museum is VERY depressing, the group of men I went with all cried. They have baby shoes from inside the concentration camps, etc. The smithsonian museum of natural history has a nice collection of dinosaurs and stuff in it which is pretty cool, and the smithsonian museum for air and space (or something like that) has a lot of neat stuff too if you're interested in that. (I wasn't at all, but it was still kind of cool.)

Also the smithsonians are all free, which is a nice tip Be prepared to walk a lot!

China Town has some great places to eat, and they have some "knock-off purse" shops (Prada, Coach, etc) If you can get to the Adam's Morgan District at night they have some great music and dancing (Madam's Organ is great)... also Union Station has great shopping and the biggest food court anywhere....

Walk the National Mall museums and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Capital City Brewery has many great beers and fabulous, affordable food!

Have fun!

Thanks!!!!

OK the best place to shop is at the mall in Pentagon City. It's four floors of stores and it's awesome. The bottom level is the food court. I really enjoyed walking about Union Station...it is totally driven to tourism (out of control prices) and they also have a big food court on the bottom level. Chinatown was not what I was expecting, maybe that was a good thing. I thought it would be like the Chinatown in Manhattan like Canal Street. It wasn't. I didn't see any Chinese people at all. We ate at Nando's Peri Peri there and it was good. We took a tour the next day and saw all of D.C. We got off at the Air and Space Museum and at Lincoln Memorial...it was awesome! We had a great time riding the Metro too and we learned quick how it works. I want to go back again and next time we're going to do more of the Smithsonian.

the wall of soldiers lost - if you know anyone who died - we got a print for my dad who served in the war of his friends.