Itinerary for a two week trip across East Coast USA: Washington DC

The first stop for the first 3 days of our East Coast Adventure after our long haul flight (click to see the blogpost I wrote about the flight experience) was Washington DC. Where better to start than the Capital of the USA?!

Day 1: Arriving at Washington Dulles airport at 3pm local time, we had already organised transport to the hotel via Addison Lee, making life so much easier. We checked ourselves in to the Westin Georgetown, and headed out to explore the local area. The staff at this hotel were great, providing us with an upgraded room and free wifi! This definitely helped us shake off the jet lag!

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My top tip if you’re staying in Georgetown – visit Washington Harbour. It’s a hub of restaurants with a beautiful vista. We ended up finding ourselves a lovely spot with a view over the river to eat dinner.

Day 2: Sightseeing Day! In my opinion, you cannot visit DC without doing a bit of sightseeing, as there are so many iconic buildings in this city. We decided we would try and do all of this in one day. Warning – if you are walking between these buildings, it is quite a walk. We did well over 20,000 steps on this day! There are those hop on hop off buses around the city too if the walking seems too much. Here are my highlights of the sightseeing day:

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We also visited the National Space Museum. This is a great place to visit, with an added bonus of admission being free! If you have a spare half an hour and you are unsure what to do, I would highly recommend.

Day 3: We visited Smithsonian Zoological Park, which is another free attraction just north of Georgetown. However, we did not stay for very long, as it was very busy, and the enclosure size was not great in my opinion, which made us feel sorry for the animals.

Instead, we decided to do head back down to our favourite spot, Washington Harbour, and try a Capitol River Cruise down the Potomac River. This is something I would highly recommend, as you get a great view of the iconic buildings you have seen the day before from another perspective. The tour guide had the perfect mix of providing information, but also allowing you to just sit back and enjoy the journey which was ideal.

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Highlight of the trip: For me, this had to be Georgetown. I cannot state enough how pretty it is. Additionally, there are a large number of shops to explore too! I loved the atmosphere created by being on the waterfront. My family and I are always drawn to the water, whether it’s a lake, sea or river. There is something so calming about sitting riverside.

Recommendations for places to eat:

• Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place – a seafood restaurant on the waterfront at Georgetown. This is where we had our dinner on Day 1. There is such a large amount of seating outside, it’s a great place to see and watch the world go by!
• Founding Farmers – we had an amazing brunch here on our way into the centre of DC from Georgetown. I would highly recommend the blueberry buttermilk pancakes – although perhaps make sure there’s someone to share with you as they’re huge!

• Nick’s Riverside Grill – situated on the Potomac River at Washington Harbour, this place offered some great American food.
• The Caucus Room Brasserie – this restaurant is in the Westin Georgetown, which was very convenient for us after a long day sightseeing.
• Sequoia – this restaurant was also at Washington Harbour in Georgetown. The elevated position of the outdoor seating gave you another perspective of the Potomac River, and the large amount of seating as well as the bar and tv’s showing sports gave the place a great atmosphere. We all agreed this was our favourite dinner in the city.

So there we have it! My recommendations for a fantastic trip to Washington DC. Staying in Georgetown really impacted on our stay, as we discovered so many places due to just walking out of the hotel and stumbling upon things unexpectedly. Next up – Philadelphia!