How we spent a week in DC on under $300

Traveling is the best, don’t you think? It’s a time to forget the stress of everyday life and experience something different. For us, it also gives us a chance to explore the world and have new experiences. But you know what else makes travel more enjoyable? When it isn’t putting a huge dent in your wallet. Recently, we got back from an amazing, week-long trip to Washington D.C. where we were able to do everything that I just described:  we explored, we experienced new things, we escaped regular routines, and we didn’t have to break the bank! Here is how we spent a week in Washington DC on under $300.

Saving Money While Traveling

To provide a little bit of context to our vacation, I recently graduated from college (finally!) and spent the entire summer working and studying for the CPA exams. Due to the taxing nature of studying (no pun intended), I wasn’t able to work as much so our income streams weren’t quite where we wanted and needed them to be, but I also knew that I would soon be starting to work full-time and my freedom to travel and do things would be restricted to a greater degree. So, I wanted to have one last getaway before that happened. However, because our income wasn’t in a spot to be able to spend a lot on travel, we had to find a way to travel on a budget— especially considering we had already done a big Italy trip earlier this summer. So here is how we cut costs and traveled on a budget for this trip!

Generous Family Members

First and foremost, I just have to say that we have awesome family members. Because of their hospitality, we were able to have a free place to stay, transportation, and food to eat during the duration of our stay. One draw to Washington DC for us was the fact that we had family that live about an hour outside of the city. They let us know that they were more than willing to house us and give us food whenever we were around.

We went into the trip thinking we needed to rent a car and buy groceries, but because of their hospitality, we didn’t have to do any of that! That helped us save A TON of money on this trip. They were nice enough to drop us off at the nearest metro station and even let us borrow their car one day when we wanted to drive down to Mount Vernon! They also had enough food for us to make sandwiches and pack snacks for the day so we didn’t have to eat out for every meal. Those two things alone saved us a few hundred dollars. Beyond that, most of the things we did were pretty reasonable in terms of price!

Southwest Companion Pass

For those who haven’t heard of the Southwest Companion Pass or don’t have one, it’s time to learn about it and get yourself one! It is probably one of the best travel hacks out there. We will post an article soon about how we got it, but to sum it up, our family of three was able to fly round-trip to Washington DC only having to pay the taxes and fees (which was about $22)! I’m a big believer that you make or break a trip’s budget on the flight, so being able to only spend $22 for a round-trip vacation across the country was pretty incredible and made our trip much more doable. Our flights were direct as well, so that was a double bonus!

The one downside to flying with Southwest is that there are no assigned seats and you are boarded based on different priority rankings. Luckily, because we were traveling with a baby, we were able to board after the A-list members so finding a row to ourselves wasn’t an issue at all.

Favorite Sites and Experiences

Now that you know how were were able to save money, let’s talk about what we did and what we loved about our trip! I have to say that we lucked out with the weather. We arrived in DC at the tail end of Hurricane Florence and although DC wasn’t hit directly by the storm, we expected to have at least a few rainy days. Luckily, there was only one day with rain and it was still very manageable. For the rest of the week, we enjoyed very mild weather that was probably about as perfect as you can get. That made things much more enjoyable, particularly since we were traveling with our daughter.

Museums

We aren’t necessarily big museum-goers but we there were a few museums we were excited to go see. Here are some of the museums we visited and our thoughts on each one!

Holocaust Museum

Based on some conversations I had with people, this wasn’t their first choice of museum due to the somber nature of it, but having previously lived in Germany and visiting actual concentration camps, we were pretty set on visiting it. It was a very sobering experience, particularly when they have you walk through a room where you are surrounded by the shoes of thousands of victims. This was probably the most powerful exhibit in the museum. The Holocaust Museum as a whole served as a good reminder that humans are capable of incomprehensible cruelty and that if we aren’t careful, history can repeat itself. It is definitely a museum people should experience at least once in their lifetime.

American History Museum

If you want a museum with lots of variety and odds and ends of American History, this is definitely the place to go! We rushed through it because there were only a few things that really drew our attention. The biggest draw for us was seeing the original Star Spangled Banner that was hung at Fort McHenry. Having visited the fort just a few days earlier, it was really neat to see the actual flag that inspired our national anthem. I was surprised how massive it was! Some other cool things that my wife and I enjoyed were the exhibits showing all of the First Ladies’ Inaugural Dresses and the hat that Abraham Lincoln wore on the night of his assassination.

National Archives

Seeing some of the founding documents of the USA was pretty incredible. Most of the Declaration of Independence was faded to the point of being unable to read any of it, but it was still amazing to think about the significance of what was in front of us. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution are also housed here so stopping by the National Archives is a must when going to DC!

Museum of Natural History

The Hope Diamond was super overrated. Sure, it’s a very valuable and gorgeous diamond, but I thought there were a lot of other gems and exhibits that were far more interesting. Maybe my unrealistic expectation of seeing a ginormous diamond ruined it for me, but when I saw the actual diamond I was pretty disappointed. Seeing actual mummies, fossils, and other rare gems, on the other hand, was absolutely fascinating!

Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport

Based on recommendations from family members, we took a trip outside of the National Mall to the other Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. It was fantastic! You basically walk into this huge hangar where a wide variety of aircrafts from the beginning of aviation through modern space travel are housed. I loved seeing some of the first airplanes ever created. It truly is remarkable how far technology has advanced and this museum definitely highlights that.

Other amazing exhibits included an SR-71 Blackbird, which was a stealthy reconnaissance aircraft used during the Cold War. This thing was crazy fast. For reference, the average speed of a bullet is 1,700 miles per hour… This plane had a top speed of 2,200 MPH! Unreal. The most impressive exhibit, however, was the Discovery Shuttle. I have never seen a space shuttle in real life and it did not disappoint! If you are able to get outside of DC, go to the Air and Space Museum for sure!

Monuments and Other Sites

When it comes to vacationing and sightseeing, we are definitely more of a monument and historical sites type of family. Washington DC has tons of awesome monuments too! And better yet, a lot of them are fairly close together! Granted, walking to all of the monuments will definitely wear you out but it’s worth it! One of my favorite parts about the National Mall was seeing the impressive Washington Memorial just about anywhere you went. It stands alone and soars above any other building in DC. Apparently, no building in the city is allowed to be taller than the monument either!

Having recently gone to Italy, it was pretty cool to see the influence of Roman Architecture on a lot of the symbols of DC. The Capitol building’s dome is modeled after St. Peter’s Basilica and is very impressive! We were able to tour the Capitol and going inside of the dome was one of the coolest parts. The Jefferson Memorial is also modeled after the Pantheon, so there is lots of cool architecture in the city! Another cool example of architecture is the Lincoln Memorial. Although not modeled after Roman Architecture, it is modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Pretty awesome! It took us a few days of being in DC before we got around to visiting the actual monuments and I have to say, the trip did not feel complete until we saw these monuments. That was by far my favorite part of DC!

Getting outside of DC was also incredibly fun and something we would definitely recommend. Our favorite site outside of the Mall was George Washington’s Mount Vernon. It was truly amazing! It was fun touring through Washington’s old residence. He basically had his own little village. The most amazing part was the scenery though. Mt. Vernon is perched on top of hill that overlooks the Potomac, and the view is stunning. If you get a chance to get out of the city, definitely go here!

Another day trip we took was to Baltimore where we went to Fort McHenry and visited the National Aquarium. Fort McHenry had a pretty powerful presentation that gave the background story of the battle and events that took place there that inspired our national anthem. At the end of the presentation, they play the anthem and lift up the screen, revealing windows that look out to the fort and you see the American flag waving in the distance in the middle of the fort. It was pretty awesome!

The aquarium was also very big and fun! I think Adelyn really enjoyed seeing all of the color fish! We even got to touch some jellyfish and see a dolphin show! I had heard from some coworkers that this aquarium was probably the best in the country and it definitely didn’t disappoint! There were a ton of exhibits with a huge variety of fish. The dolphin show was really fun and at one point, you walk down this spiral ramp where you are surrounded by sharks. Absolutely amazing! If you have kids, this is something they would really enjoy!

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Now, we understand that not every trip can be done for $300, particularly when going across the country. We lucked out that we had family living close to DC and that they were so accommodating. But what can be done is traveling on a budget! If you want to travel, then find creative ways to save money! Whether that is through travel hacking, staying with family and friends, or just being particular about what you spend your money on, you can find ways to travel for cheap! And if you are looking for somewhere fun to go and have never been to Washington DC, we would definitely recommend going!