Our family usually prioritizes traveling to nature-filled locations for our trips but one exception is that we have wanted to take the kids to see the Smithsonian Museums. A few weeks ago, my husband realized he would have some extra time off so we decided to take a trip somewhere. In true Saldana form, we decided to drive from the very south pole of Texas to Washington, D.C.!
After deciding our destination, I got to work planning it out which is quite a bit more difficult than it sounds. If you didn’t already know, “The Smithsonian” is not one museum but 17 museums and galleries plus the zoo and botanical gardens! This doesn’t even touch on the amount of monuments and historical sites around. Because of this, we had to pick and choose what we would see during our 4-day trip. The Smithsonian Museums, zoo, and gardens are all free which is awesome. I grouped what we would see into areas as close as I could together without overloading us for one day. In case it helps anyone else in planning, we decided on the following:
Day 1:
The Museum of Natural History
The American History Museum
The National Archives Museum
Day 2:
The Washington Monument
The Lincoln Memorial
The Air and Space Museum
The Museum of the American Indian
Day 3:
The Smithsonian Zoo
Day 4:
The Library of Congress
The US Capitol Building
The Smithsonian Botanical Gardens
One thing I will say is that we had hoped to escape the heat of south Texas by driving 17 hours Northeast … this only helped a little. It wasn’t as hot as home but it was still very hot and humid this time of year which made walking more difficult.
The Museum of Natural History was very cool. It was large and impressive and had tons of animals, bones, ancient Egyptian artifacts, and so much more. We really enjoyed it but it was similar to many other museums we have visited. It was just bigger.
The American History Museum was one of our favorites. A lot of effort was put into the exhibit rooms so that as you walked through each war that America has been in, it came alive. The kids were really interested and asked lots of questions which was a great way to spark their interest in history even before it is comprehensively covered in school. There were also a lot of inventions and vehicles in this one.
The National Archives Museum was one of the museums that needed a timed ticket to enter. The rotunda was intricate and impressive. It was very cool to see the original Declaration of Independence and other founding documents. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the documents themselves to protect them from damage.
Monuments The kids really enjoyed visiting the different monuments and asking questions about them. I think it’ll also be a great way to remind them as we learn about history. “Do you remember the Lincoln Memorial? Let’s learn more about him and what he did!”
The Air and Space Museum was very impressive. The kids absolutely loved all the aircraft hanging from the ceiling. The exhibits ranged from the Wright Brothers’ first flight all the way to the space vessels. Three of our four kids voted this as the favorite of that day.
The Museum of the American Indian was very unique in its design layout. It is sort of a wiggly oval shape and the exhibit pathways take this wandering movement around the building. I have always been interested in the cultures and ways of surviving and thriving that different indigenous tribes had and have.
The Smithsonian Zoo was very nicely designed with foliage and shade throughout. We had a great time there. The only complaint we had was that pandas were a large focus when you are entering but turns out they had already returned the pandas to China so they didn’t actually have any there.
The Library of Congress was one of my favorite places in the whole trip. It is intricately decorated inside with murals, columns, arches, gold overlays, painted ceilings, and statues over seemingly every inch of it. I had really never heard anyone talk about the Library of Congress and was pleasantly surprised by how amazing it was. They even had a scavenger hunt for the kids to find certain things in the decor.
We didn’t go inside the US Capitol Building but we walked from the Library of Congress, around the Capitol Building, to the Botanic Gardens.
It was a little confusing where the entrance to the United States Botanic Gardens was but once we found it, it was very nice inside. They have the rooms separated into environmental biomes for the different types of plants. Their orchids were my favorite!
Overall, we had an excellent trip and visited 5 museums, a zoo, a botanical garden, and several monuments in 4 days! It was a lot of walking and we were tired but very glad we took the time to go.
I will be sharing our other past adventures here too, so I’ll see you later!
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