Despite having now lived in DC for a year (and visiting family here often throughout my childhood) I still have not done all the touristy things that there are to do in DC, so instead of attempting to list everything that you could possibly hope to do I am just going to list my favorites so far. Enjoy!
Monuments: A cheap and easy way to see DC is simply to walk around the mall and check out all the monuments (the museums are free too). My personal favorites are The World War II Memorial, The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.
Museums: There are a ton of museums in DC - the Smithsonian museums are free while others can be very pricey (Spy Museum & Newseum to name a few). My personal favorites are also all super kid friendly! I always take friends to, The Air & Space Museum, The Natural History Museum, & The American History Museum.
Eating on the Go: D.C. is famous for their food trucks and I cannot recommend a better/ cheaper way to grab lunch. The usually hang out around McPherson Square and Farragut around lunch time and are super popular among the locals. This beats a watery mystery meat hot dog from a vendor any day. If you do not happen to find yourself near one, most of the museums have decent cafes and there is always Pret & Pot Belly's if you are looking for a chain with quality food.
Drinking: D.C. is king of happy hour as far as I can tell, number one question people seem to ask me in DC is 'what do you do' so naturally there are a plethora of happy hours for further networking...
Swanky: If you are looking to see & be seen both P.O.V. and The Gibbson provide great cocktails. (Note the Gibbson is designed to be like a speak easy so yes you will see a door and no sign).
Quality Beer: The micro brew craze has caught on in D.C. as well. There is D.C. Chocolate the cities own micro brewery & there is Church Key (Logan Circle) which has a very very impressive menu.
Kitch: Rocket bar in China town has great happy hour deals and skeeball!
Dining Out: You can find pretty much anything in D.C. although the city is very well know for it's Ethiopian restaurants (highest Ethiopian diaspora in the US). Since this is home of the lobbyist we are not short on steak or seafood restaurants either!
For Indian Rasika cannot be beat (hence needing to make reservations at least a month in advance) however be prepared to spend a lot more than you are used to paying for Indian food. If you care to venture out into the sub-urbs, Delhi Club in Clarendon (Arlington) continues to be some of the best Indian I have ever had! I frequent it about once a week- just that good.
For Burgers: Head to Thunder Bar in Georgetown, not only are their standard burgers amazing but you can get some pretty exotic meat at this place!
For locally sourced: My dad & I both love Founding Farmers as does the rest of DC (so be sure to make reservations). Also you have to order their popcorn just trust me.
For Greek: Some people really enjoy Cava Mezze but I do not think any Greek compares to Zaytinya in Penn Quarter. It is popular so reservations are a good idea.
For Sushi: To me nothing in the summer is better than Perry's rooftop for sushi. They accept reservations for certain hours as well.
For an end to a night of drinking: Can't come to DC and not have jumbo slice, there is even a song about it! Also Amsterdam Felafel is good sober or drunk.
For those venturing out of DC: Arlington has a ton of great restaurants including Liberty Tavern, Lyon Hall, Ray's the Steaks & Fireworks Pizza.
Where to Stay: Stay outside of DC, seriously it is so much cheaper. Anything on the orange line or blue line will get you into the city very easily with hopefully minimal problems. Just remember on metro escalators stand to the right & pass on the left!
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Voluntourism
I found this on the New York Times:
I think it provides a lot of great resources for voluntourism for those looking to do it.
Personally I have had two experiences one in Ghana and the other in Tanzania. The one in Ghana was a bit laissez faire - the orphanage (which was super corrupt) did not give us any guidance on our daily tasks and we maybe saw our trip coordinator once a day if lucky. (We were also lucky that we slept right next to the orphanage where one volunteer was tasked with getting her own lift each day alone to her volunteer site...)
In Tanzania however everything was super organized, they even made weekend trips and end of volunteer trips available to us which allowed the volunteers a chance to sight see and do some good. There were also language lessons.
Moral of the story is that there are loads of different experiences to be had with voluntourism, it just depends on what you are looking to get out of the experience. Either way I highly recommend it!
Personally I have had two experiences one in Ghana and the other in Tanzania. The one in Ghana was a bit laissez faire - the orphanage (which was super corrupt) did not give us any guidance on our daily tasks and we maybe saw our trip coordinator once a day if lucky. (We were also lucky that we slept right next to the orphanage where one volunteer was tasked with getting her own lift each day alone to her volunteer site...)
In Tanzania however everything was super organized, they even made weekend trips and end of volunteer trips available to us which allowed the volunteers a chance to sight see and do some good. There were also language lessons.
Moral of the story is that there are loads of different experiences to be had with voluntourism, it just depends on what you are looking to get out of the experience. Either way I highly recommend it!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Stay healthy while traveling
The New York Times recently did an article on how to stay healthy while traveling:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/business/reducing-the-odds-of-getting-sick-on-a-trip.html?ref=health
In addition to the article here is what I do when traveling:
1) Airborn - Don't worry I do not believe it is the cure all that some people claim it is, but I figure it's better than nothing. I usually take one the day I am leaving and another the day I arrive followed by another my next full first day. I figure just giving my body some extra nutrients while it is tired and recovering can't hurt.
2)Re-hydration tablets: These are key when traveling anywhere you plan to eat food you would not normally eat. Sometimes you are just going to have trouble digesting the food, it wont necessarily ruin your whole trip (although it nearly did for my dad in Morocco but he also ate lettuce - silly boy). This will help you recover more quickly.
3) Anti-diarrhea medication: For the same reason as above, sometimes when enjoying delicious new cuisine your tummy just cannot handle it. This helps keep issues to a minimum. Also fun fact drugs like Imodium are water retaining drugs (to help you from getting too dehydrated when sick). When on safari my friends and I actually took them as a preventative measure - none of us dared venture outside our tent at night to the latrine 100 meters away, after all we might run into an elephant or hyena! So we took Imodium to help make sure that we did not wake up in the night to wee. Now I am not a doctor so I have no idea how bad this is for you medically but, it didn't kill us?
4) Hand sanitizing wipes: When in Ghana we only got one bucket of water a day which meant wanting to clean our hands and not necessarily being able to. Anti-bacterial hand gel is great when your hands are clean but when they are caked in dust and all sorts of other things you don't want on there, adding gel wont get it off so much as just roll it around (gross). With wipes you get texture and therefore you can get more dirt off!
What do you do to stay healthy while traveling?
In addition to the article here is what I do when traveling:
1) Airborn - Don't worry I do not believe it is the cure all that some people claim it is, but I figure it's better than nothing. I usually take one the day I am leaving and another the day I arrive followed by another my next full first day. I figure just giving my body some extra nutrients while it is tired and recovering can't hurt.
2)Re-hydration tablets: These are key when traveling anywhere you plan to eat food you would not normally eat. Sometimes you are just going to have trouble digesting the food, it wont necessarily ruin your whole trip (although it nearly did for my dad in Morocco but he also ate lettuce - silly boy). This will help you recover more quickly.
3) Anti-diarrhea medication: For the same reason as above, sometimes when enjoying delicious new cuisine your tummy just cannot handle it. This helps keep issues to a minimum. Also fun fact drugs like Imodium are water retaining drugs (to help you from getting too dehydrated when sick). When on safari my friends and I actually took them as a preventative measure - none of us dared venture outside our tent at night to the latrine 100 meters away, after all we might run into an elephant or hyena! So we took Imodium to help make sure that we did not wake up in the night to wee. Now I am not a doctor so I have no idea how bad this is for you medically but, it didn't kill us?
4) Hand sanitizing wipes: When in Ghana we only got one bucket of water a day which meant wanting to clean our hands and not necessarily being able to. Anti-bacterial hand gel is great when your hands are clean but when they are caked in dust and all sorts of other things you don't want on there, adding gel wont get it off so much as just roll it around (gross). With wipes you get texture and therefore you can get more dirt off!
What do you do to stay healthy while traveling?
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