How best to spend three days in Wahsington DC?

I have lived in the Washington DC area for the past 25 years. And, I often to the touristy stuff myself and sometimes act as a tour guide for friends that come to visit. With 3 full days to see DC, THIS is how I would approach it.

First, plan your trip before you leave home. Fine. Get the maps and so forth from online, or you can usually contact some of the Washington DC tourist groups to have free brochures AND MAPS mailed directly to your home.

Now, this is how I would do it..

Day 1. Get yourselves an all day Tourmobile Pass. These are kind of touristy, but nice. They have buses that make regular stops at different locations about every 30 minutes. With and all day pass, you can hop and hop off at the various stops. I would recommend that you simply ride the bus for the entire loop and see everything there is to see by bus, and then decide what you are going to visit on the second loop. This will give you plenty of photo opporunities and also allow you to get off at certain stops for a walk around.

Day 2. Go on the US Capital tour. Then, work your way through the series of Smithsonian museams on the National Mall. My personal favorite is the Air & Space Museum. You can usually spend an entire day at that one museum! But try not to - you will also want to visit the Museum of Natural History and the the Museum of American History.

Maybe try to hit the National Gallery of Art as well. I don't think it's that appealing to young teens, but in a way it can be. There are quite a few paintings there that they will recognize in school textbooks and elsewhere as they get older. It's kind of neat to say, "Oh yeah. I remembering seeing the ORIGINAL in Washington DC. Yeah."

Day 3. Start at the Jefferson Memorial and tidal basin and work your way toward the Lincoln Memorial. Then to the WWII Memorial and then the Washington Monument. The Holocaust Museum is also in that general area. Then, get on the Metro (subway) and take it to Arlington National Cemetery. From there you can walk around the cemetery grounds. Tomb of the Uknowns, JFK's eternal flame, Lee House, and some other noteworthy memorials.

You really need to decide as a family WHAT you want to accomplish on your trip and sort of come to an understanding on what IS fun and what is NOT fun. For older people, sitting on the park bench near the tidal basin and watching the sun set near the Jefferson Memorial is a beautiful sight. For younger people, checking-out the cool space capsules in the Air & Space Museum is a much better way of spending your valuable time. So decide - quiet art galleries? Or, the hands-on exhibits at the other museums?

You won't even scratch the surface in 3 days, but your list shows some of the best highlights. Regarding budget, there are soooo many things that are free. If you take metro to the Smithsonian stop, you can walk to most places from there. You have 5-7 Smithsonians which you could spend the entire 3 days in. Tha'ts also walking distance to the Wash. memorial. You'll need to jump on a train to go to Arlington in VA. There's not much else in that direction, so you'll be going to that area only for the cemetary. Hope this helps. There's maps everywhere and you'll find it a very tourist friendly area.

First, you'll want passes on the Metro. It's clean, efficient, and you can hit all your spots. It'll be the safest, cheapest, easiest way to travel. www.wmata.com. Must see: several of the Smithsonian Museums, probably American History and Air and Space. There's also the National Zoo on the Metro's Red Line.

DC is not very big, actually. You'll want to break it up to see it sufficiently well. The farthest spot on your list is Arlington; everything else is pretty much very close to the National Mall. If you want to break out of DC, take the metro to Old Town Alexandria. You could hop a shuttle or cab to Mount Vernon.

All previous answerers are right. I will not try to steal their thunder.

See the Lincoln Cottage at the Armed Forces Retirement Home. Rock Creek Church Road and Upsur Street. On the H8 bus line. When I was living there we nicknamed it the H Late.

See the monuments and memorials at night. Lighting is different.

Notice the ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial (a thin sheet of marble that lets light through).

Take notice that the Jefferson Statue lay in the weed beds behind the U.S. Capitol for 25 years until they could build the Memorial and about 3 years ago they repaired the pit marks from that exposure.

A bronze of the Lincoln statue in the Lincoln Memorial is in the Fort Lincoln Cemetery on the border line of Washington, DC and Maryland. 3401 Bladensburg Road Brentwood, MD 20722,

Eat in Chinatown and see the Union Station (food court in the basement is very nice).

I could keep going on, but that would take you 3 weeks instead of 3 days.

It looks like you have hit the high points!

There is a museum in DC (or the area) for almost everything it seems! So, it pretty much depends on what you are interested in. I'm glad to see you listed the Smithsonian twice, since there are many buildings.

Here is a good place to get started on suggestions for what to do:

http://dc.about.com/

This part of their site is about some tours: http://dc.about.com/od/walkingtours/a/5BestTours.h...

The DC Ducks looks pretty neat, but we haven't done one yet...

If you are going to be in town during it - the Folklife Festival is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: http://www.festival.si.edu/

and look at:

http://dc.about.com/od/touristattractions/u/Things...

If you have time, consider going to Mount Vernon -- we really like it and they have the best GW museum around, in my opinion.