Hello all,

Me and my gf are arriving DCA this Nov around 9am on Tuesday and have an international flight to board from IAD at 8:45pm the same day. That means we have to recheck our baggage at IAD and arrive at least 3 hrs before departure. So we will have roughly six hours to explore DC. If my flight arrives at right time in DCA then we can claim baggage and leave DCA in a rental car around 10 am. We are planning to visit the capitol, white house, Lincoln memorial and have lunch in that area and leave capitol hill area around 4pm to reach IAD around 5:45pm. Do you guys think it is too ambitious plan for a weekday? Which area would be good place to park so that we can visit these places and come back to car around 4pm? Do you guys have any suggestions for good restaurants in that area? All suggestions are welcome.

Thanks

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

By far the best place to look (and for this to be - I'll ask the Moderators to move it after a time) is the Washington D.C. (including Baltimore) forum (link).

The plan is too ambitious even though you should have a great deal more time than you state.

Parking in DC is brutally expensive, when it is available at all. Most garages charge the full daily rate after an hour (anywhere from $25-50). As you move around, you will be paying that several times.

A better plan is to grab your luggage and then Uber to a hotel nearish to the first place you are headed. Drop your bags there (a very nice tip to the bellman will do it). Should run you about $15 into DC.

You have not told us what carrier you depart on, but I cannot imagine a reason to be at IAD 3 hours prior to departure unless you are planning dinner out there. Allow yourself 1:15 (0:45 + rush hour). Uber back out to IAD will run around $40 (Maybe $45 depending on where you are when you need to swing back to the hotel to pick up your bags).

You can use Uber, the Circulator bus ($1), or Metro ($2.25) during the day if walking isn't in the cards.

All of this will be more pleasant and cheaper than worrying about parking and waiting for your car to be brought around.

You might also consider exploring the Air and Space Museum at IAD. The Smithsonian A&S on the National Mall is nice but there is a second location at IAD with far more planes (they land at IAD and can be towed to the museum). If you like planes it's an excellent way to spend the time you have and avoid traffic issues navigating DC.

You will then need to rent a car and will need to be willing to risk leaving your luggage in the trunk as you can't lug suitcases into the museum and it may be way too early to check your bags at IAD.

What is your departing carrier and where are you headed?

I generally concur.

Note that the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial is a large area to cover. In addition, if you plan to go in the Capitol, you need to go through the visitor's center, located on the far side of the Capitol...may be time consuming.

Restaurants - many good places to eat, but most are several blocks off of the National Mall. If sightseeing is your objective, then I'd just grab a bite to eat in one of the many museum cafeterias rather than backtracking.

But if you want to eat at Washington landmark, at a reasonable price, I always recommend the Old Ebbitt Grille near the White House.

Welcome to Flyertalk Dtan07.

As is noted earlier, we do have a dedicated destination forum that your thread is being moved into. Please follow the redirect for further discussion.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

There is paid luggage storage at Union Station, which is relatively close to the Capitol, if you want an alternative to hoping for a friendly bellman. It's not cheap, though.

The White House and the Lincoln Memorial are miles from Capitol Hill, which refers to the neighborhood east of the U.S. Capitol. The closest restaurants to the Lincoln Memorial are about a mile away in Foggy Bottom. (There are reasonable lunch options near the White House.)

Also, when you say "visit" the White House, do you mean admiring it from outside or actually visit it? Arranging a tour is complicated, and if you want one you should start the application process today. Go through your member of Congress.

Do keep in mind that the weather might not cooperate with your plans, especially in November, so I'd be as flexible as possible.

Everyone has made great points. Here is my input:

1. Unless you plan on visiting an area with lack of transportation or Uber( which you are not), I highly suggest against renting a car. Not only is parking expensive in downtown DC and you might have an issue finding a spot, it can be a pain to drive. You can easily get to every place without the hassle of renting a car by public transportation or Uber.

2. As one who loves arriving early at the airport, I think 2-2.5 hours should be plenty. Make sure you check in online for that flight either that day or day before. When you get to the airport, the airline might have a drop off bag lane. Which Airline is it by the way? And how much luggage are you bringing? My experience is it gets fairly quiet by 615 pm or so.

3. For limited backtracking, I would suggest either Uber or Metro to Union Station. Explore the station for some time. I think it is a very nice plus as others have said, it has a baggage storage area. After doing that, you are 3 blocks from the US Capitol. If you can't get a tour for the US Capitol, I highly suggest going inside the Library of Congress. Even if you can, I would suggest touring the LOC. From there, head back to Union Station get your bags and hop on the DC Circulator bus(National Mall one). I suggest getting a Smartrip card at National Airport when you arrive. They are 10 dollars a person that should give you 8 dollars of credit. You can use it on the metro, metrobus, DC Circulator or regional buses in the DC area. It should never expire. Get off when it gets close to the Lincoln Memorial. You are in an area with more Monuments and Memorials. Plus in the right area to head out to IAD Airport. After you visit the nearby sights, either Uber, Circulator or you are not completely tired walk to the White House. Are you a US Citizen? If so, I suggest trying to get a White House tour while the Us Capitol with your representative now. While it is nice to see, if I am doing a lot more that day while traveling earlier in the day would be the best option. But if you can get a tour of either place, take it and try to limit the exploring of the National Mall.

4. Old Ebbits Grill might be your best option for a late lunch. Near the White House, plenty of history, near a Metro Station or should be easy to find a Cab or Uber if you don't want to take the metro/bus out to Dulles Airport.

5. As long as you are in line by 6:45 pm at Dulles Airport you should be in good shape. Even less than that should be fine. It would help a lot if we knew the airline. Some of them close the ticket counter a hour before the flight so the people can get out to the gate or it is the airline rules. I repeat what I said before, get a printed boarding pass online for the International Flight. That allows you do one step at the airport. Could you possibly travel with a carry on sized bag? That way if you are running a bit late, you can bring it through security and then gate-check the bag.

6. Options to Dulles Airport- Uber, Taxi or Metro plus bus out to Dulles. I highly suggest against the 5A bus. I would take Metro out to Wiehle and then take whatever comes first from Uber, Taxi, Silver Line Express or Fairfax Connector 981/983 bus.

Sorry if it was not well-written or too long. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate and contact me.

Thank you all. You guys are really awesome.

Here are answers to some of the questions you guys asked me

1) We will be flying by Qatar airways to India and their website recommend to reach there 3 hrs prior to departure which will be 5:45pm. It is good to know that the airport has fewer traffic around 6pm. I will keep in mind to have a printed boarding pass in case if we get late somehow.

2) We are not US citizen and in between us there will be four pieces of luggage. 2 carry ons and two Check ins. I checked the Union Station luggage facility and it looks like we have to pay around $14/hr for using the facility. I am also weighing in the option of Day hotel as suggested by some of you. Moving around with four luggages will be nightmare for sure.

3) How much time will it take if we wanna admire Capitol and white house from outside and take a tour of LOC or smithsonian but not both?

Thanks

"The Smithsonian" is a collection of almost twenty museums, most (but not all) clustered along a two-mile stretch called the National Mall. A full "tour" of the Smithsonian would take about a month of full-day visits. You probably have time to look at one exhibit in one museum. Is there a particular type of art or period of history you're interested in?

Library of Congress Jefferson Building tours run hourly, 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., and last an hour. Tours are walk-up, first-come, first-serve. On weekends or in summer I'd suggest arriving 20 minutes early to stake your space, but mid-day on a November Tuesday you're probably fine showing up 5-10 minutes in advance. You can also just wander the building on your own if you don't want to spend a full hour or arrive out of sync with the tours.

The LoC Jefferson Building is directly behind the U.S. Capitol, so depending on when you arrive relative to the start of the LoC tour you could admire its exterior before or after. I wouldn't expect that to take more than fifteen minutes, but then I'm not a big architecture admirer and also I walk fast. Maybe give yourself half an hour if you want to walk all the way around the building and take lots of pictures. The Summer House in the northwest corner of the Capitol Grounds is probably my favorite part of the whole thing, so take a minute to admire that, too.

The White House is about a mile and a half west of the Capitol. You could take the Mall Circulator Bus (picks up at Fourth and Madison, costs $1 per person, exact change cash or SmarTrip Card only), but honestly it's not going to save you any time over walking, so I'd either walk (30 minutes) or Uber/Lyft (15 minutes). If you want to visit a museum I'd suggest one that you have to go past anyway en route, given time constraints; that includes the National Gallery of Art (not technically part of the Smithsonian), the Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of American History. Lists of current and forthcoming exhibits are available online if you want to target your visit. The National Gallery has several cafeterias/cafes, which are reasonably upscale as museum food goes, although also (as museum food tends to be) expensive.

So, an hour for touring LoC, half an hour for walking around the Capitol, half an hour for walking from the Capitol to the White House, however long you want to spend museuming en route, and half an hour to walk around the White House. Then Uber/Lyft back to wherever you stashed your luggage, and head to the airport.

Oh, and I'm not aware of any hotels in the city that offer "day rates," nor will most let you check-in before mid afternoon. (There are hotels by the airports that offer day rates, but the last thing you want to be doing is adding extra trips to/from the airports.) I would honestly go with the "metro (or Uber/Lyft) to Union Station, store bags there, walk to Capitol/LOC" option; it's expensive but low-hassle and puts you right where you want to be to start your touristing.

Final edit: If you really want to see the Lincoln Memorial and are Uber/Lyfting it to the airport, ask if your driver can take you past it on the way out of town. It should only add 10 minutes or so to the drive. (This of course presumes an Uber driver who knows their way around and isn't 100% dependent on Google Maps.)

For flexibility, I would drop your bags at a hotel in Rosslyn - either Le Meridien or the Residence Inn.

That does three things: 1) Puts you close to a Metro stop (either coming or going); 2) puts you on I-66 to get out to IAD; and 3) if you choose lets you loop in a taxi driveby of Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.