Welcome back to Part 2 of our East Coast Road Trip: Washington, D.C.! I’ve got another travel vlog for you at the end of this post, so be sure to stick around to bring these pictures to life! You can also catch Part 1, Raleigh right here!
We hopped in the car from Raleigh bright and early to try to skip the D.C. morning rush hour traffic! We got there about 5 hours or so later! It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day there! The sun was warm and bright and made for the perfect day to tour around downtown D.C.
Our very first stop when we (finally) found a parking spot was the U.S. Capitol for a tour! I was so excited to get to see the Capitol in person! I was also just so surprised at how many people were there! It’s so neat to think of all of the various nationalities of people coming through there constantly to check out all of the beautiful history made right there in that building!
We hopped in line and got our tickets for our tour with about 100 other people with the same idea in mind. We got our headphones situated and had the best little tour guide who has probably said the same script about 18 million times in his job there! HA! He was really great though! We learned SO much!
I loved hearing about the meetings that had been held in different areas of the Capitol and all about the history that had been made right in the places we were walking! It was surreal seeing all of it in real life!
The artwork and imagery all around us was so beautiful! It was neat because you felt like everyone was in awe as we all walked through on our tours listening to the guides tell us all about the historical individual rooms and spaces!
After we wrapped up our tour, we headed right around the corner to check out the National Mall!
Along the way, I couldn’t help but check out the gorgeous buildings on every corner!
The Washington Monument was a popular place to be! There were so many people everywhere taking all kinds of pictures!
Next, we were off to see the Lincoln Memorial! It was SO much bigger than I expected! I had seen it so many times in history books or on T.V., but to see it in person was amazing!
Mr. Lincoln himself!
After we visited the National Mall, we decided to try to see if we could catch a glimpse at the White House! We had no shortage of sight-seeing while we were there for the day, that’s for sure!
Turns out, two things were happening the same day we were there! There was a meeting of the National leaders that day so the White House was blocked off entirely! We couldn’t even get remotely close. So, I just snapped a few pictures of the buildings around it. There was also an incident that happened around the White House itself, so there were police everywhere! It was pretty chaotic, but it actually seemed weird because to everyone else there, this seemed pretty normal! (HA!)
The only view available of the White House that day. This area was still super pretty to see though!
We also saw the President fly off! You can see a little glimpse of that in the vlog down below!
We walked almost 5 miles that entire day, so we were pretty hungry for dinner! First things first though, we had to check into our AirBnB.
We happened to get the cutest place right in the heart of downtown D.C.! I was in LOVE with this place! It was so cute and so clean! (My favorite part! ;)) If we make it back down to D.C. anytime soon, we want to stay there again! It was amazing and so historical!
Once we got settled into our home for the night, we hit the road to find the closest food! Pizza, burgers and fries definitely hit the spot!
After we ate, we explored more downtown to see all the sights and scenes around us. It was so much fun! At the end of that night hough, we slept so hard! We were completely exhausted but so excited to finally see this amazing city! I would definitely say hands down, D.C. was my favorite city to visit! It wasn’t near as crazy as Chicago and had such a home-y feel to it! Everyone seemed so busy and determined to get to where they needed to be but also so friendly! We absolutely LOVED visiting there! We can’t wait to go back really soon!
Alright, that’s it for Part 2 of our trip! I can’t wait to show you around our next destination as we packed up and traveled down the East Coast to Hilton Head, S.C.!
Stay tuned friends! Thanks so much for following along! Oh, and don’t forget to check out my travel vlog below! Be sure to like & subscribe so you won’t ever miss an update!