My Son's Quick and Frugal Trip to Washington, DC

I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to posting this yet; my son was in the US for 6 weeks, got home already over 2 weeks ago, and I still haven't written about his trip other than his first day touring there, in New York City. But I'm catching up. 

Since my son was in the US for the first time, and I didn't know when he'd have a chance to go there again, I didn't just want him to stay in the New York metropolitan area (other than camp in rural Pennsylvania)- I decided to send him to Washington, DC, to sightsee and be there for 2 nights. He took a bus and stayed at my friend there who hosted him and he had a terrific time.

Upon arrival in DC, my friend took him to a free concert at the Kennedy Center, by the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship musicians, and Lee said it was amazing and even gave him chills.

Later that evening, as his introduction to the capital, my friend's husband took my son jogging to see the monuments lit up at night. I've actually never seen these at night, even though I've been to DC 3 or more times, so it was cool that he was able to see them.

He saw the White House...

The Comte de Rochambeau statue... (I'd actually never seen it before.)

He climbed the Lincoln Memorial (and even though it was at night, it was still very busy.)

At the base of the Washington Monument....

The Commerce Building... (I think. I've never been there.)

Of course he saw more, these are just the nice pictures he sent me.

When deciding what my son should do in DC, I knew the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum was a must see. From when he was little my son loved everything airplanes and rockets, and even to this day he follows Space X's Starship updates multiple times a week. It is part of the reason I wanted to make sure that my son's short stay in New York before camp was cut in the middle and I sent him to DC, because he couldn't go to the US and miss out on this amazing experience.

So the next morning, it was off to the Smithsonian.

So I knew a museum all about the history of flight and aueronautics would be something he'd enjoy. He definitely did.

He saw:

The Wright Brothers' plane.

An X wing fighter from Star Wars.

The inside of a cockpit.

A model of Soviet's Vostok spacecraft, the first manned spacecraft to orbit the earth.

The inside of the "backpack" on an astronaut's space suit.

The lunar module...

The Apollo command and service module.

A complete space suit.

The Surveyor Lunar Lander and Ranger 8 Space Probe.

Gemini 7 capsule.

Cirrus 7 private plane.

A Boeing 747.

A really old Boeing plane, the 247.

And a different cockpit.

After a few hours at the museum, no matter how much he enjoys aeronautics, he was ready to do something else. He had a Segway tour booked that evening, so I was trying to help him come up with something free to do in the meantime. I gave him a list of all the free Smithsonian museums in the area, but then when I discovered that there was a free Smithsonian zoo, I picked that for him. I'd tried to convince him to go to the Bronx Zoo when he was in New York, to see animals that our local zoos don't have, but he didn't want to spend the money and an entire day there, but a free zoo, when he had some hours to spare? He was game.

Because he was limited in time, since he had to be back in time for his tour, I took the map of the zoo and sent him with these scribbled directions, to make sure he was able to see as many of the animals as we didn't have locally as possible. For example, we don't have bears or many sea creatures locally in our zoos, and we don't have many different primates, so I wanted him to be able to see that.

Of course it was really, really hot, and the zoo had many exibits closed, but he still was able to see a lot of unique animals, many that he'd never seen before.

Scarlet ibises.

Golden lion tamarin.

Meerkats.

Armadillos.

Sand cats.

Some other types of monkeys.

Gorillas.

He also saw orangutans, but the pictures he took are not G rated, so I can't share them.

He saw so many seal lions making such loud noises and he videoed it, never having seen or heard that before. (This, more than anything, was why I wanted him to go to the zoo, to experience that.)

Andean bears.

Roseate spoonbill.

Lots of different rays.

Naked mole rats.

American bison, and more...

A good way to spend a few hours. Not the most extensive zoo out there, but worth it since it was both free, and had things that my son had never seen before.

My wonderful friend who hosted my son wanted to treat him to something special, so she paid for him to go on a Segway tour of DC. He had a terrific time, enjoyed riding it, and learned a lot about DC while doing so. It was not particularly frugal, but it was a gift that she was happy to share with him.

This perfect picture with him on the Segway in front of the Washington Monument made me smile.

He got to listen to someone play the bagpipes in front of the Department of the Treasury.

Capitol Hill in the distance... (Yes, he went closer too.)

The World War 2 Memorial...

Looking at the Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin.

And last but not least, the Marin Luther King Junior Memorial.

The next morning he didn't have much time before he had a bus back to New York, but I suggested that he take a walk around Georgetown.

These are some of the pictures he took.

Some buildings...

And some pretty nature.

And then he had to rush to the bus station to take his bus back to DC.

Only cost of this trip? The bus there and back, and the Segway tour. But to keep this trip cheaper, he could have done one of the many other free things in DC. Washington, DC is the ideal place to travel to on a budget, since there are so many more free things than you can do than my son managed to see.

We applied for tickets for tours of the White House and the Capitol Building, but didn't get approved, but those also are free, in addition to tours of the Pentagon, and all the other Smithsonian museums. I wish I could go back there to tour, but I'm so glad my son was able to go and see so many special things in his short time there.

Have you been to DC? What are your favorite things to do there? What are your favorite free or frugal tourist activities in Washington, DC?