Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Renee Sklarew is a native Washingtonian who enjoys exploring her city’s many attractions, especially its incomparable museums and national parks. As a young girl, her family lived in Switzerland, where she began her passion for travel. Renee is a Study Leader for Smithsonian Associates and leads tours of historic sites and parks in the Washington, D.C., area. She contributes travel articles and photos to newspapers and magazines, including “The Washington Post,” “Washingtonian,” “Northern Virginia Magazine,” and “AAA Traveler.” Renee serves as dining editor for “VivaTysons” magazine and is the co-author of the popular book, “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Washington, D.C.”<p>"If you're looking for a reliable guidebook, the leader is the Unofficial series."<br />
—<i>The Mail</i> (London)
</p><p>"A Tourist's Best Friend!"<br />
—<i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>
</p><p>"Indispensable"<br />
—<i>The New York Times</i>
</p><p>"I have been to Washington, D.C., many times since my first visit in 1977. I was most recently there just this summer. We have done episodes on Washington, D.C., on <i>Amateur Traveler</i>, and I feel like it's a city that I know. So I will admit that I was a bit surprised how much I learned about the city before even getting to page 15 of the <i>The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C.</i>... If you want an insider’s guide to the District of Columbia, check out <i>The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C.</i>"<br />
—Chris Christensen, AmateurTraveler.com</p>
Written by Washington, D.C.’s Renee Sklarew, this is the insider’s guide to Washington at its best. With advice that is direct, prescriptive, and detailed, it takes the guesswork out of travel by unambiguously rating and ranking everything, including attractions. The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C., digs deeper and offers more than any other guide. With an Unofficial Guide, you know what’s available in every category, from the best to the worst. Step-by-step detailed plans allow you to make the most of your time in Washington, D.C.
This Book Includes
- Detailed descriptions of more than 50 hotels in Washington’s most popular neighborhoods—plus proven strategies for getting the best rate
- A complete guide to Washington’s cultural and historic sights—with helpful hints for making the most of your time—plus comprehensive reviews of Washington’s most popular attractions
- Proven strategies for enjoying Washington with your kids
- Everything you need to know to get around quickly and easily—including complete details on the Metro
- Detailed reviews of more than 50 restaurants—a complete dining guide within the guide—plus recommendations for fast-casual dining by neighborhood
- Expert advice on the best neighborhoods for shopping and nightlife
OVER 6 MILLION UNOFFICIAL GUIDES SOLD!
“A Tourist’s Best Friend!”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Indispensable”
—The New York Times
List of Maps
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
- Welcome to Washington
- About This Guide
- Why “Unofficial”?
- How Unofficial Guides Are Different
- Comments and Questions from Readers
- How Information Is Organized: By Subject and by Location
- Washington, D.C.: Portrait of a City
PART ONE Planning Your Visit
- When to Go
- Crowds
- Weather
- Gathering Information Before You Leave
- Making Advance Reservations for Monuments, Museums, and Tours
- How to Get to Washington, D.C.
- Where to Go
- What to Pack
- Special Tips for Special People
- A Calendar of Festivals and Events
PART TWO Accommodations
- Deciding Where to Stay
- Washington, D.C.’s Iconic Hotels
- B&Bs
- Vacation Rentals
- The Best Hotels by Neighborhood
- Getting a Good Deal on a Room
- The Internet Advantage
- Travel Agents and/or Vacation Packages
- When Only the Best Will Do
PART THREE Arriving and Getting Around
- Coming into the City
- Arriving by Car
- Arriving by Plane
- Arriving by Train
- Arriving by Bus
- Getting Around Washington
- Taking the Metro: Just Do It
- Metrobus and Other Bus Systems
- Taxis and Car Services
- Things the Natives Already Know
PART FOUR Sightseeing Tips, Tours, and Attractions
- So Much to See, So Little Time
- Happy Hours (The Sightseeing Kind)
- Taking an Orientation Tour
- The Best Tours in Town
- Washington’s Attractions
- Washington Attractions by Type
- Washington Locations by Attraction
- Maryland Suburbs
- Virginia Suburbs
- Day-Tripping
- What’s New in Washington, D.C.?
- Hidden Gems and Free Things to See and Do
PART FIVE Dining
- The Washington Cuisine Scene
- Prime Dining Neighborhoods
- The Wharf on the Southwest Waterfront
- Restaurants by Cuisine
- Capitol Riverfront and Navy Yard
- Capitol Hill and Barracks Row
- H Street Corridor and NoMa
- National Mall and the White House
- Penn Quarter, Chinatown, and Convention Center
- Foggy Bottom
- Georgetown and West End
- Dupont Circle and Logan Circle
- U Street Corridor
- Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights
- Upper Northwest: Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, and Van Ness
- Maryland Suburbs
- Virginia Suburbs
- Two Dining Destinations Worth a Drive
- The Best . . .
PART SIX Entertainment and Nightlife
- Washington Nightlife: More Than Lit-up Monuments
- The Big-Ticket Venues
- Cutting Curtain Costs
- A Washington Tradition: Live Local Music
- Nightlife Neighborhoods: Clubs, Bars, Live Music, and Dancing
PART SEVEN Shopping
- Mall Shopping
- Museum Shops
- Great Neighborhoods for Window-Shopping
- Specialty Shopping
PART EIGHT Exercise and Recreation
- Working a Workout into Your Visit
- The Basic Drills
- Bicycling
- Fitness Centers and Core-Strengthening
- Yoga Studios
- Recreational Sports
- Tennis and Golf
- Swimming
- Ropes and Rocks
- Boating, Paddleboarding, Floating, and Water Parks
- Segway Tours
- Ice and Snow
- Spectator Sports
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Football and Soccer
- Hockey and Roller Derby
- Horse Shows and Horse Racing
- Tennis
Index
Unofficial Guide Reader Survey
From May through September, Capitol River Cruises (capitolriver cruises.com) leave on the hour starting at 11 a.m. and depart from Washington Harbour in Georgetown for a 45-minute cruise past the Kennedy Center, the Capitol building, the LBJ and Maritime Memorials, the Custis-Lee Mansion, and other points of interest. Potomac Riverboat Company (potomacriverboatco.com) has a varied and intriguing fleet, including a couple of double-deckers, an authentic split sternwheeler, and a 1906 skipjack that takes 90-minute cruises from National Harbor. PRC also operates the water taxi between Georgetown, The Wharf, Old Town Alexandria, and the National Harbor complex. They are known for their quirky canine cruise and their popular fireworks and cherry blossom tours as well.
If you can stand the “wise quacks” or if your party includes kids, consider the DC Ducks (dcducks.com) tour aboard renovated WWII amphibious vehicles. The ducks leave Union Station between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., roll through the Mall, and then plop into the Potomac river near Georgetown and cruise down to Gravelly Point, under the National airport flight path. Tours run from April through October, and only if the weather permits.
Spirit Cruise (spiritcruises.com) offers a variety of tours in D.C. The Spirit of Washington yacht tour incorporates a 3-hour lunch or dinner cruise departing from 580 Water St. near The Wharf. Some have a live DJ and dance floor. Reservations are required and prices range from $55 to $109. The Spirit of Mount Vernon, which also leaves from The Wharf, is another upscale option that runs from March through October and includes admission to Mount Vernon with 3 hours to explore the estate and gardens.
A local family favorite is the National Park Service’s hour-long barge trips (nps.gov/choh), drawn 19th century–style by mules through the locks of the C&O Canal at Great Falls Visitor Center in Potomac, Maryland. Park service rangers in costume explain the workings of the lock system and the history of the canal.
The recently refurbished Odyssey (odysseycruises.com) offers entertaining options, such as a Bottomless Mimosa Brunch Cruise, a Mother’s Day cruise, festive holiday cruises, and traditional dinner cruises. The glass-topped luxury ship departs year-round from southwest Waterfront, near The Wharf, and most passengers dress for the occasion. The three-course plated dinners range from $113 to $135 per person.
From the concept up, The Unofficial Guides are different from other guidebooks. Other guides are researched and developed by an individual author or coauthors, usually travel writers. With such guides, one size fits all, and the needs of a specific target market are never truly taken into account. The Unofficial Guides, by way of contrast, cater to a specific psychographic market: those individuals with a “Type A” personality. It is the tastes, preferences, and opinions of our carefully defined target market that dictate the content of the guides. In other words, we start with the needs of our reader, identified through exhaustive research, and build a book that specifically meets those needs.
No other guides do this, nor can they, really, because the scope of the research and processing of data require time, experience, and resources that are beyond the capabilities of a single author or even several coauthors. An entire organization collects and compiles data for The Unofficial Guides, an organization guided by individuals with extensive training and experience in research design, as well as primary data collection and analysis. Unofficial Guide research is known and respected in both the travel industry and academe, having been cited by such diverse media as USA Today, The Orlando Sentinel, New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Travel Weekly, London Observer, Financial Times, Bottom Line, Money, the BBC, the Travel Channel, CNN, Fox News, Operations Research Forum, and statistics text books published by Addison Wesley.
The editor of the IEEE Journal of Transactions on Evolutionary Computation wrote, “The Unofficial Guides research team is a multidisciplinary group consisting, among others, of data collectors, computer scientists, statisticians, and child psychologists. One would expect to find this type of research at universities, government agencies, or large corporations. To see it in a travel series is amazing!”
Finally, the historical success of The Unofficial Guides confirms that, from a sales perspective, targeting Type As is ideal. First, no other guides target them or understand their singular needs. Second, there is at least one Type A adult in every family or group that is planning to travel. Because Type As are extremely assertive, take-charge kinds of people, this person will usually assume responsibility for almost all of the travel planning and research, including decisions concerning the purchase of guidebooks. In short, The Unofficial Guides target the individual who will most likely plan and lead the family vacation.