Our hearts are filled to the brim with great and memorable experiences as we have by God’s grace been able to vacation in our Nation’s Capital for the past several days. It is not as hard or expensive as you think, and I would like to provide a little travelogue of our experiences here to encourage other would-be family travelers to come to Washington, DC!

First off, the timing. If there is some way you can take time off in September/October or early November, it is perfect. There is no one else traveling which means there is hardly anyone at all in the FREE museums your tax dollars already pay for. We booked a flight with Spirit Airlines from Boston to BWI for less than $100 per person. Then we took the MARC commuter rail for less than an hour from Baltimore into Washington. From Boston, door to door, it came to just under 4 total hours of travel.

Next, we booked a row house through Airbnb. It is a terrific, very family-friendly house within 10 minutes of the nearest Metro station. The wife and I along with our three youngest found the beds clean and comfortable and the layout of the house very conducive to rest and recreation. I was impressed by the toys for young children and my somewhat older children (ages 8 and 11) were still inspired to play because they were so cool. Just a word about getting around in DC. Though the Metro can get confusing, we highly recommend getting around by it instead of renting a car. And if you stay at a house like ours about 30 minutes by transit from the Capitol Building (the center of the city), then you do not have to worry about where to park that ole car. My wife strongly encourages whenever possible to take the bus around town because you see so much more than when you descend into the bowls of the earth for the subway. Without getting into the minutia of the DC metro system, it is not as straightforward as say Boston or New York, but you CAN get around for not much money if you just apply yourself and learn.

And oh the places you’ll go! DC is a veritable paradise of learning opportunities which all your hard-earned tax dollars ALREADY PAY FOR. I’m telling you. I took my wife and three of my children to not less than thirteen monuments and museums, all WITHOUT PAYING A CENT. Of course, I could write a book about each visit, but I wish to highlight a few for the general edification of those sitting on the fence, wondering if they really need that overpriced, overrated trip to Disney World.

First, let me recommend the heart of the entire city, the Capitol Building. It is quite literally the geographical center of Washington, a place marked on the floor of the crypt. And you can see it as well as the taller Washington Monument from many points throughout the city because nothing is zoned to be taller than those two great symbols of freedom. I dragged my teen-aged children into a free tour of this important center of our government where laws are made. And they were surprisingly impressed and inspired. Our exceptional tour guide used a state-of-the-art communication device that allowed us to hear her voice without the need to shout or repeat anything. My children noted that she spoke at a very even pace, and it was possible to hear and remember every valuable word she uttered. A miracle, in our age of noise and useless information! The US Capitol, like almost every free museum in Washington, kindly asks for some kind of advanced registration. This is mostly to accommodate large numbers and make sure that everyone comes at a time that they can be served. But in a non-peak season like mid to late fall, it is very easy to register same day and sometime same hour for a museum you wish to see. I literally did this on my phone while standing in line for a museum later on in the week.

So that is the Capitol. Next in order of recommendation would be the newly created People’s House. For decades, maybe even a few centuries, people have complained of visiting Washington, but not being able to visit the President’s house. Or those that do complain of being rushed through the process and herded like so many sheep set out to pasture and never return to their home. Well, the people’s prayers have been answered. At the People’s House they have recreated all the essential elements of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and designed it for tourists who wish to take their time and learn. I have to admit that the one hour I allotted for our visit was hardly adequate for what my children desired to learn there. With multiple simulations and videos of current staff, it was hard to break free for our future appointments elsewhere. Leave about two hours for this if you choose to go, and I recommend this over an actual visit to the White House (which is becoming increasingly harder and harder to access anyway).

Time now fails me to tell of all the other wondrous monuments and museums at our beckoning call. On this last evening in the city, my youngest daughter visited not less than six with me in the course of four hours at night! But let me speak of one more that meant a lot to me personally. The newest Smithsonian Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened its doors in 2016. I have desired for some time to visit should I ever return to Washington. And this afternoon, the occasion arose when my kids desired an early afternoon return to home and my wife left me deliciously alone to visit for the last two hours the museum was open.

The NMAAHC begins low to the earth symbolizing the very humble and dehumanizing effects of the slave trade, the involuntary migration that brought many Africans to our shores in early colonial America. The visitor works his way up from the ground floor through many liberating moments of the African-American experience culminating in the ground floor of the present day. I only had time to experience the standard exhibits and did not get to see the traveling exhibits of the upper floors. But what I did experience was quite moving. And at a station dedicated to the very successful and much-loved African-American talk show host, Oprah Winfrey, I first listened in to a young lady’s conversation, and asked her an opening question of my own. “Who do we have now that is similar in your community to Oprah?” The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by other African American museum goers eager to engage the question and tell their own stories of beating all the odds and becoming successful middle class Americans. It struck me how wonderful it was to have this opportunity of listening to their stories, not just of success but of continued suffering at the hands of this centuries-old injustice. I determined to listen more than offer opinions, and I was richly rewarded. And in the end, some even thanked me for listening, for we have all recently come to the end of an election where many hoped that at least one African American woman might reach the Oval Office, but to no avail. Museums like this one offer a space to process one’s grief over failed expectations.

So come to Washington instead of Disneyland! I cannot tell you how many wonderful conversations we had with random strangers from all over the country and the world. The melting pot that is our blessed country is waiting to teach your children how to be citizens of the world and beyond that, of the Kingdom of Heaven.