Vaughan to Washington, DC: the American history week by chauffeured car

Washington, and the road to it

Washington is the trip a Vaughan family takes after Ottawa: the same idea — a capital built for the visit — at a larger scale, with the Smithsonian's nineteen museums free at the door, the National Mall's two miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, the monuments lit at night, the Capitol Visitor Center's tour, the National Archives' Declaration and Constitution, Arlington's changing of the guard, and Mount Vernon down the Potomac. It is the week for children between ten and sixteen, and it is a road trip rather than a flight because the road is interesting — the Gettysburg battlefield is on it, so is Hershey — and because five flights and a Reagan airport transfer cost what a Sprinter costs and carry less. The Destination DC site has the city; the border guide has the bridge.

The route, and Gettysburg on the way

From Vaughan the Peace Bridge and I-90 to Rochester, I-390 south through the Genesee valley, I-86 to Corning, then I-99 and I-81 down Pennsylvania's spine — Williamsport, Harrisburg — to Maryland and the Beltway; or, for a family that wants Gettysburg, the turn at Harrisburg onto US 15 through the battlefield town and then into Washington by Frederick. Ten and a half hours by the estimate; eleven in practice with the border and stops; split at Harrisburg (eight hours) or Gettysburg for a family that wants the battlefield's afternoon and a night before the capital. The travel desk holds the split's inn.

The Smithsonian, in the right order

Nineteen museums and a zoo, free, and a family cannot do them all: the National Museum of Natural History for the dinosaurs, the Hope Diamond and the elephant; the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall for the Wright Flyer and the Apollo capsule, with its Udvar-Hazy annex by Dulles for the Space Shuttle and the Concorde on a daily-hire afternoon; the National Museum of American History for the flag and the First Ladies; the National Museum of African American History and Culture, whose timed passes are the scarce ones; the National Gallery on the Mall's north side for the parents. Two museums a day, with the Mall's food trucks between and the Sprinter for the Udvar-Hazy afternoon; the rest of the days the family walks the Mall and the vehicle is released.

The monuments at night

Washington's monuments are lit from dusk and the family that sees them at nine at night — the Lincoln Memorial's statue, the reflecting pool, the Second World War memorial's fountains, the Vietnam wall, the Jefferson across the Tidal Basin, the Washington Monument's floodlit obelisk, the Martin Luther King memorial — sees the city as it was designed. A chauffeured family does it as an evening's daily-hire hour: the Sprinter from the hotel at 8:30, the Lincoln Memorial's steps, the walk along the pool to the Second World War memorial, the vehicle at the Jefferson, the hotel by eleven. It is the evening the children remember over the museums.

The Capitol, the White House and the Archives

The Capitol Visitor Center's tour is booked online through the Capitol's site or through a Canadian's embassy request; the White House tour for non-Americans is requested through the Canadian Embassy in Washington weeks in advance and is not guaranteed — the site is plain about that — and the family that does not get it sees the house from Lafayette Square and the Ellipse; the National Archives' rotunda holds the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the dim light and the queue is worth it; the Library of Congress's reading room is across the street from the Capitol and free.

Arlington and Mount Vernon

Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac is the Kennedy graves, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier's changing of the guard on the hour and the rows on the hill; a Vaughan family does it as a morning with the Sprinter dropping at the visitor centre and collecting at the Iwo Jima memorial above. Mount Vernon, Washington's estate sixteen miles down the river, is the afternoon — the house, the farm, the tomb and the view — and the Sprinter's daily-hire day is Arlington, Old Town Alexandria's lunch and Mount Vernon in one.

The week, in shape

Day one the drive with Gettysburg's afternoon and a night in the battlefield town; day two the Capitol tour at ten, the Archives, Natural History, the monuments at night; day three Air and Space, American History, the African American museum's pass, Georgetown's dinner; day four Arlington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon on daily hire; day five the National Zoo's pandas or Udvar-Hazy, and the drive home split at Harrisburg, or the eleven hours straight with the children asleep from Williamsport. Four or five nights, the Sprinter as a return with two daily-hire days, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Eleven hours at the wheel through three states; I-81's trucks through Pennsylvania's hills; the Beltway; Washington's garages at the Mall's edge, where a Sprinter does not fit and a family car pays by the hour; the Metro with five people and a stroller — which the family still uses, because for the Mall it is best — and the flights: Washington's three airports are all an expensive transfer from the Mall, and five fares plus the transfers cost what the Sprinter costs and carry a fraction of the bags.

Seasons

Late March and early April for the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin, when the city is at its best and its fullest; the American Memorial Day and Fourth of July for the parades and the fireworks over the Mall; October for the fall on the Mall and the Blue Ridge on the drive; the Canadian March break for a week when the museums are quiet and the cherry trees may or may not have started. Summer is hot and the museums are the refuge.

Pairing it

Washington pairs with Gettysburg and Hershey on the road, with Baltimore an hour north for the aquarium and the harbour, and with Philadelphia and New York as the East Coast loop — Washington, Philadelphia, New York and home by the Thruway, ten nights in a Sprinter.

The Washington day with the vehicle, in order

Day four of a family of five from Maple: the Sprinter at 8:30 from the hotel, Arlington's visitor centre at 8:50 — the Kennedy graves, the nine o'clock changing of the guard at the Tomb, the Arlington House view over the city — the pickup at the Iwo Jima memorial at 10:45; Old Town Alexandria's King Street at 11:15 for lunch and the waterfront; the George Washington Memorial Parkway down the Potomac to Mount Vernon at 1:15 — the mansion's timed tour, the farm, the tomb, the river view — until 4; the Parkway back past Reagan airport with the planes low over the water; the hotel at 5:15 and the Sprinter released for the evening. Eight and a half hours of a daily-hire day that a family in the Metro cannot do, and the children's favourite after the monuments at night.

The Metro, for the days without it

The Mall's days are the Metro's: the Smithsonian station on the Blue and Orange lines opens onto the Mall's middle, the Archives station onto the National Archives and the Navy Memorial, Capitol South onto the Capitol's visitor centre; a SmarTrip card per person, tapped at the gates, and the family's day is the museums with the Sprinter at home. The chauffeur drops the family at the hotel on arrival and the Metro does the rest until the vehicle's days.

The Grade 10 version, and the Ottawa comparison

Vaughan families who did the Ottawa trip with a Grade 7 student do Washington with the same child in Grade 10, when the American Revolution, the Constitution and the Civil War are the course; the Archives' documents, the Capitol's tour, Gettysburg's field and the Lincoln Memorial's speeches carved on its walls are the curriculum made real, and the Ottawa–Montreal–Quebec loop is the Canadian week the family did first. Both are the Sprinter at the tables with a parent at neither wheel.

Costs, plainly

The return with two daily-hire days is one number in the booking engine; against it are five fares to Reagan, Dulles or Baltimore, two airport transfers of an hour, and — for the family that drove itself — I-81's eleven hours each way, the Beltway, and Washington's garages, which are the city's real parking cost since the Mall has none. The museums are free, which is the trip's other arithmetic: a family that spends nothing at nineteen doors spends what it saves on the vehicle that carried it there.

The younger children's Washington

A family with children under ten does Washington as a zoo, a carousel and a museum with buttons: the National Zoo's pandas and elephants on Connecticut Avenue, the carousel on the Mall in front of the Smithsonian Castle, the Natural History museum's dinosaurs and the insect zoo's tarantula feedings, the Air and Space museum's touchable moon rock, the National Children's Museum by the Wilson Plaza, and the paddle boats on the Tidal Basin in spring. The Metro carries them and the Sprinter does the zoo morning on its daily-hire day; the boosters at $25 each stay fitted.

Baltimore, an hour north

Baltimore's Inner Harbor is fifty minutes up the Baltimore–Washington Parkway — the National Aquarium's dolphins and the rainforest, the historic ships at the piers, Fort McHenry where the anthem was written, Camden Yards for an Orioles game and Little Italy for dinner — and a Vaughan family adds it as a Washington daily-hire day or a night on the way home; the Baltimore post has the city and the Visit Baltimore site has the aquarium's timed tickets, which sell out on summer Saturdays.

Booking it

Book from your Vaughan address as a return or a daily hire with the split, the tours' dates and the daily-hire days in the plan; tell us the seats, the bags and every passenger's citizenship for the border, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Washington trip