Tours


Bored? There’s plenty to do. We’ve got you covered.

Baseball

The Washington Nationals are out-of-town against Atlanta during the conference. However, if you're in D.C. with nothing to do on Sunday afternoon, you can catch a game against the Florida Marlins at Nationals Ball Park, which is just a short Green Line metro from the conference hotel. Book tickets for that game and bring your ballcap! 

Restaurants

Washington has some great restaurants, and we've got some great food critics. Check out the Washington Post's Going Out Guide, City Paper's Young and Hungry blog and Washingtonian's Best Bites blog for the most up-to-date information about the latest movements in D.C.'s food scene.

National Mall

If you are sightseeing, chances are you are on the Mall. The National Mall is a unique National Park, filled with an intense concentration of monuments, memorials, museums, and monumental government buildings instantly recognizable to people all over the world. The White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, the Air and Space Museum, the National Natural History Museum, the Holocaust Museum, the International Spy Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum are just a few of the top national attractions here, all within walking distance of each other. The tourist-designated sights are just half of the attraction, though—to walk down the National Mall is to thread the halls of world power in the modern era.

Print out the official National Mall map (pdf). The Mall is larger than it looks, and a walk from the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial or the Tidal Basin will take a while and may wear you down a bit. Plan ahead what you want to see and concentrate your activities in one section of the Mall each day.

Beyond the Mall

The National Zoo in Woodley Park is one of the nation's most prestigious, and the nearby National Cathedral is an awe-inspiring mammoth. Embassy Row is an impressive stretch of some 50 foreign-owned historic and modernist mansions along Massachusetts Ave throughout Dupont Circle and Woodley Park. The historic neighborhood of Georgetown is another great sightseeing destination, full of beautiful old colonial buildings, the 300+ year-old Jesuit campus of Georgetown University, a pleasant waterfront, and the infamous Exorcist steps. By car (i.e., taxi), you can get to some of the capital's more far-flung and less-frequented attractions, like the magnificent Catholic National Shrine and the National Arboretum in the Northeast, or the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in eastern Anacostia.

Views and Panoramas

D.C.'s famous height restrictions—originally no taller than the Capitol building, then no taller than the width of the street the building is on plus 20 feet—have resulted in a skyscraper-less downtown, giving D.C. a distinctly muted feel for what is actually the heart of a huge metropolis. The obvious downside to this law is that it limits the supply of housing and office space, which sends the cost of living and running a business downtown soaring, sparking runaway suburban sprawl, which has helped cause terrible traffic congestion, erode the city's tax base (since suburbs are in Maryland and Virginia), and undermine the vitality of the city's downtown. On the upside, though, this means that you'll have a great view over the city if you make your way to just about any old rooftop or even a nice hill.

There are several classic spots to get a look out over the city. Starting with the cheapest and easiest, the Old Post Office Tower is free and centrally located, just off the National Mall in the East End, with a good view of the nearby federal buildings and a helpful map explaining what you're looking at. Also free, the Kennedy Center rooftop terrace (in the West End) provides a nice skyline somewhat removed from the city, with the the Lincoln Memorial prominent in the foreground. The Washington Monument is another free option on the Mall, though as a vista point its small, bunker-like ports covered with scratched plastic make it less inspiring than might be expected. If you have some money, the Newseum (East End) is a good place to see a remarkable museum and get a close up view of downtown. Finally, the W Hotel (West End), just a block from the White House, has a rooftop terrace, bar, and lounge. While the bar and lounge are expensive, a single cocktail gets a table for several people long enough to take in the view, and suave cheapskates can simply wander around long enough to get a load of the White House from above (close enough to make out the Secret Service overwatch) before heading back to the elevator.