5 Tips for Enjoying Washington DC with Kids
Everyone needs to see Washington DC, right? In second grade my oldest learned about American History. She also owns an Isabelle American Girl Doll, whose story is set in modern-day Washington DC. I had some credit with an airline from a canceled trip that needed to be used, and credit card points for a hotel. So after I put these pieces together, it didn’t take long to decide on a mother-daughter trip to the Nation’s Capitol!
And later I returned with each of her brothers for the same special trip. Just them and mom to see the sites that interest them specifically. We learned a lot along the way and now I want to share my tips for visiting Washington DC with kids with you!
1. Call your Congress Members
My first tip for visiting Washington DC with kids is to tell your member of Congress that you are coming. The major government buildings, including Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court, all require reservations to tour. Your Representative or Senator can make these for you. The White House has very limited tours, can be hit or miss if you receive one, and can be canceled at the last minute based on official business. Our Representative’s office was able to schedule tours for us for Congress, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the State Department, and the White House.
2. Learn about the White House, even if you can’t visit
If you are unable to secure an official tour of the White House from your representative or senator, you can still visit the White House Visitor Center nearby and admire it from the street or National Mall. The Visitor Center does offer a Junior Ranger program for children. There are many artifacts from previous Presidents during their time in the People’s House. When we visited during December, the National Christmas Tree was right across from the gate. It was lit and the State Trees around it were decorated, which we thought were cool.
3. Visit the National Mall
For one my kids the most exciting part of the visit was seeing the Lincoln Memorial. You can view the entire Mall from the steps and see all the way to the Capitol building. At night, you can see President Kennedy’s Eternal Flame burning at Arlington National Cemetery across the river from the back side of the Memorial. I enjoyed getting to see the World War II Memorial and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial which have both been built since I visited as a teenager.
The Junior Ranger Badge for the National Mall is unique. For each monument you visit you collect a separate page to fill out, and when you have visited the required number of Memorials and collected the required number of pages you earn your Badge. The Badge can be picked up at any Ranger Station at any Memorial.
4. All the FREE Smithsonian Museums
Another whole area to explore on your trip to Washington DC is the variety of museums. The Smithsonian Institute has 17 different museums in DC. I visited several of them with each kid based on their interests and the Library of Congress. We visited The National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History. One hidden place at the Library of Congress for your book-loving kids is the Young Readers Room. It’s located on the side of the main reading room and is full of children’s literature. We spent some quiet time here, resting, in the middle of our busy day of exploring.
The National Museum of American History has many fun exhibits. Historical Exhibits and Pop Culture are both found here. They enjoyed visiting the Spark! Lab designed for kids to become inventors. It’s a very hands-on exhibit and creative space. Kids walk through the invention process starting with finding a problem to solve, designing it on paper, and then building their creations. They even explained to the staff how they would program it using what she knew about coding to do the things she had planned!
5. Make a Plan for Eating!
There are not a lot of food options around the National Mall, but most of the Smithsonian Museums do have a cafeteria, and so do many of the government buildings You just have to know where to look. Also the hours: government buildings are limited to normal business hours, so keep that in mind when planning your schedule. We found the Smithsonian museums open a few extra hours. Only the monuments had extended hours, and they were quite a sight to see when lit at night.
There is so much to see and do here, you can’t possibly do it all in one trip. We couldn’t even see a whole Smithsonian (the main one) in a day! Another thing to keep in mind as you plan your visit is: that not everything will be appreciated or understood by children. We are saving the Holocaust museum for a much later visit. We also did not visit Arlington National Cemetery. Many of the important people buried there she hasn’t studied yet. I feel like seeing the various memorials on the National Mall was enough for her at 8 years old to understand the sacrifice many have paid for our nation and its freedom. Someday we will go back to see the others when she has more context to understand them.
