Washington, D.C.: The Free Museums and What Else Is Worth Your Time

Washington DC is the world’s only capital city where most of the major museums are both free and world-class. The Smithsonian Institution operates 19 museums and the National Zoo on an annual congressional appropriation, and they charge nothing for general admission. This is not the case for any equivalent capital city - London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo - where entry to comparable institutions costs €10-20. It means you can spend four or five days in DC and spend almost nothing on museums.

The National Mall is the spine of this: a 3-km grassy expanse from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, lined on both sides with Smithsonian museums and flanked at the Washington Monument with the World War II Memorial to the east and the Reflecting Pool toward Lincoln’s statue in the west. Every major monument and most of the major free museums are walkable from the Mall.

The Smithsonian Museums

National Air and Space Museum on the Mall (free) is the most visited museum in the United States by annual attendance. The Wright Brothers’ Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis (Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic aircraft), the Apollo 11 command module, and a piece of moon rock you can touch are in the first two galleries. The museum extends well beyond these landmarks into aviation history, rocketry, astronomy, and space exploration. Allow a minimum of 3 hours; the full museum takes a day.

National Museum of Natural History on the Mall (free) has the Hope Diamond (45.52 carats, deep blue, currently on loan status that has made it a permanent exhibit for decades), a 45-metre-long blue whale skeleton in the Ocean Hall, and the Human Origins exhibit, which is one of the clearest presentations of palaeontological evidence for human evolution available to the public anywhere. The butterfly pavilion (ticketed separately, approximately $8) is the detail people remember.

National Museum of American History on the Mall (free) has Julia Child’s kitchen from the Cambridge house, the original Star-Spangled Banner (the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in 1814 and inspired the national anthem), and extensive exhibits on American political, cultural, and social history. More interesting and less predictable than you might expect.

National Portrait Gallery (free, in the Penn Quarter neighbourhood rather than the Mall) has the official portraits of all US presidents from George Washington to the present. The portraits vary enormously in quality; the Obama portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald generated the most public response of any presidential commissions in decades and are worth seeing in person for the scale and colour that photographs don’t convey.

The Not-Free Institutions

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (free general admission, timed passes required for permanent exhibition) is one of the most significant museums in the country - a comprehensive documentation of the Holocaust in the context of American responses and complicity before and during World War II. Not a comfortable visit; an important one.

Library of Congress (free) opposite the Capitol has one of the two surviving 1455 Gutenberg Bibles in the US in its permanent collection, plus the original of the Gettysburg Address. The main hall (Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building) is elaborately decorated Beaux-Arts architecture worth seeing as a building.

National Archives (free, timed passes online) houses the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights in a single chamber. The documents are damaged and dim under protective conditions; you can read fragments but not the full text. The context and surrounding exhibits are as important as the documents themselves.

The Monuments

The major monuments are free, lit at night, and generally less crowded after 20:00 when the tour groups have gone. The Lincoln Memorial steps at night with the Reflecting Pool and Washington Monument in the distance is one of the genuinely impressive views in any American city. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by Maya Lin (completed 1982), remains one of the most powerful war memorials built in the 20th century; the 58,000+ names cut into black granite create a reading experience that its many subsequent imitators have not replicated.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial (completed 2011) on the Tidal Basin is the most recent major addition to the memorial landscape and incorporates 14 quotations from King’s speeches and writings into the stone. The “I Have a Dream” speech excerpt on the Stone of Hope is what most visitors seek.

The Capitol and the White House

The US Capitol offers free tours (book weeks in advance through your member of Congress’s office or the Capitol visitor centre website, aoc.gov). The tour covers the Rotunda (with the Brumidi frescoes 55 metres above), the Old Senate Chamber, and the crypt. If Congress is in session, tickets to watch floor debates from the gallery are available free through your member of Congress.

The White House public tours are available only through advance request to your Congressional representative (US citizens only) or through official foreign embassy arrangements (non-US citizens). Tours are limited to the state rooms on the ground floor. The exterior from Pennsylvania Avenue (public access) and Lafayette Square opposite is the practical option for most visitors.

Where to Eat

Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street NW has been serving half-smokes (a DC-specific smoked pork and beef sausage, originally from a Virginia sausage maker) in chili since 1958. The U Street location survived race riots, white flight, and gentrification and is still family-run. A half-smoke with chili costs around $9-12.

Tail Up Goat in Adams Morgan (15 minutes north of the Mall) is the restaurant critics consistently name as DC’s best: a changing menu built around bread baked in-house, local produce, and Caribbean and Mediterranean references. Dinner runs $50-70 per person without wine. Reserve weeks ahead.

Old Ebbitt Grill on 15th Street NW, three blocks from the White House, opened in 1856 and has the longest wooden bar in the city, oysters, and reliable American cooking. The crowd is political staff and federal workers; useful for the atmosphere and for a reliable meal near the Mall without advance booking.

Where to Stay

The Hay-Adams Hotel at 16th and H NW has White House views from the upper floors and is the classic choice for political visitors, from $350-600 per night.

The Line DC in Adams Morgan is the more interesting option for non-political visits: a converted 1920s church, well-designed, good restaurant, from $200-350.

Mid-range: Dupont Circle has a concentration of smaller boutique hotels (Hotel Tabard Inn, Hotel Madera) from $150-220. The Metro’s Red Line connects Dupont to the Mall in 10 minutes.

Metro is the practical way to move around DC. Paper tickets (SmartTrip cards reloaded at machines) cost $2-6 per journey depending on distance; a tourist’s day pass is $13. The Metro operates 05:00-midnight on weekdays and 07:00-01:00 on weekends.