DC and Beyond 3 Day Itinerary

Most DC itineraries spend three days circling the same Mall. This one doesn’t: day one is a brief anchor in the core, day two crosses the river to Old Town Alexandria on the Metro, and day three is Mount Vernon, George Washington’s actual estate, $30 a head. Skip Mount Vernon to save money and you’ve skipped the best day of the trip. Bring a car, a tour bus seat, or the seasonal Potomac riverboat; the Metro stops well short of the gate. Need less? Our 2-day version stops at Alexandria. Need more? The 4-day itinerary adds Annapolis and the Naval Academy.

Book these before you go:

Day Focus Travel time Rough daily cost
1 DC core anchor: Mall memorials, one Smithsonian On foot and Metro within DC $50-80
2 Old Town Alexandria Metro to King St, about 25-30 min, or seasonal water taxi $60-90
3 Mount Vernon About 45 min by car or tour bus, or seasonal riverboat $70-110

Day 1: The DC core, briefly

Land at Reagan National (DCA) if you can; it sits directly on the Blue and Yellow Metro lines, 15-20 minutes to downtown. Dulles (IAD) reaches the Silver Line Metro in about an hour. Check into a hotel near the Mall or Old Town Alexandria, since the next two days head south anyway.

Keep day one tight: the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, and one timed-pass Smithsonian (the National Museum of African American History and Culture or the Air and Space Museum’s Mall building both need a free pass booked ahead). This is the anchor day, not the full city tour; the depth version of DC’s core lives in our dedicated Washington DC itineraries.

Dinner near the Mall or Penn Quarter. Early night. Day two starts across the river.

Day 2: Old Town Alexandria

Take the Blue or Yellow Line Metro to King St-Old Town, then walk or catch the free King Street Trolley down to the waterfront. From March through December, the Potomac water taxi from The Wharf is the more scenic option, about a 30-minute crossing for roughly $22 one way.

Is the water taxi worth $22 over the Metro? Only if the weather cooperates and you’re not in a hurry. The Metro is the reliable year-round option and costs a fraction of the price; the water taxi is a warm-season add-on for the river views, not a faster or cheaper way to get there. Check the schedule before you plan a whole afternoon around it.

Old Town’s cobblestone streets and colonial-era waterfront are genuinely walkable in a half day. Browse King Street’s shops and galleries, then eat well: Alexandria has a denser, better restaurant scene per block than most of DC proper. Evening back on the Metro, or stay for dinner and catch a later train.

Day 3: Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is George Washington’s working estate, farm, and tomb, roughly 16 miles south of downtown, and it is a paid historic-house museum, not a free National Park Service site like the Mall memorials that carry his name. Admission is $30 for adults, $16 for ages 6-11, free under 6. Hours run 9am-5pm April through October and 9am-4pm November through March.

Can you reach Mount Vernon by Metro? No, and this trips people up because everything else on this itinerary is transit-friendly. Drive, book a tour bus, or take the seasonal Potomac riverboat cruise from Alexandria or the Wharf; there is no rail or Metrobus service that gets you to the gate. Budget the trip as a half-day commitment once you count the crossing time.

Is Mount Vernon worth $30? Yes, unreservedly. This is the one day on this itinerary built around a single historic site rather than a neighborhood, and the house, the tomb, and the working farm together make it the most substantial presidential-history stop near DC. Treat the admission fee as the cost of the best day of the trip, not an optional add-on.

Head back into DC by late afternoon, or stay in Alexandria for a final dinner before flying out.

Getting around

Metro (WMATA) covers Day 1 and most of Day 2; fares are distance-based, running from about $2.25 up to a $6.75 max, with SmarTrip cards and contactless bank cards both working at the faregates. There’s no DC Circulator bus to fall back on; it shut down permanently on 31 December 2024. Day 3 needs a car, a booked tour, or the seasonal riverboat; don’t plan around transit that isn’t there.

Before you go

A casual meal runs $12-20, with an expected 18-20% tip added on top of DC’s roughly 10% restaurant sales tax. Book Mount Vernon and any Potomac cruise around your travel dates rather than same-day, since the riverboat in particular only runs part of the year. Carry water on the Mount Vernon grounds; there’s more walking between the mansion, the tomb, and the farm than the estate map suggests.

Authority references: Mount Vernon for current hours and pricing, Visit Alexandria for Old Town listings, Washington.org for DC visitor basics, and WMATA for current Metro fares.