Exploring the capital – Washington D.C.

My first time visiting Washington, and I was ready to explore! After a 14 hour night flight from Dubai we touched down and made our way to the hotel.

By this time it was already 11am, so I wanted to get out and have as much of the day as possible, as the wake up call was early the next morning.

Our hotel is by the airport, so it was around a 30 minute drive into the city, where we split up to explore. One of the guys and I from the flight decided to check out the main monuments of Washington D.C.

First up though was a bite to eat, as it had been quite a few hours since we’d last eaten on the plane!

From there we wandered down towards the Capitol.

The Capitol is the home of the United States Congress and the seat of the legislative branch of the US federal government. Neither of us being particularly interested in politics, we just admired it from the outside!

We wandered along the National Mall, which is a landscaped park that pretty much includes all of the main monuments of the city.

Up next was the Washington Monument, an obelisk on the National Mall, built to commemorate George Washington, the first president of the United States.


Since the weather was so lovely and warm, we stopped for a naughty ice cream on the way from one of the ice cream vans dotted along the road.

We strolled along the path, enjoying the sunshine and light breeze.

From here we continued our walk on to see the White House, probably the most famous building in the city!

As you can imagine there is plenty of security outside, as well as a few layers of fences, stopping you from getting up too close. I’m sure I’ve seen pictures of people much closer than we could get, but I must be imagining things!

We wandered along the streets, round towards the back of the White House, passing by plenty of other beautiful buildings along the way.

As I mentioned, you can’t get up too close, so we continued walking along, admiring the last pretty blossom on some of the trees!

By this point we’d already walked almost 14000 steps and 10km, so it was time to head back to the hotel (bearing in mind we’d also been awake for more than 24 hours!).

We walked back towards the meeting point where we’d split up, and met up with the captain who was having a look around the air and space museum. Next time I’d love to spend longer there, as we had a very quick look inside and it was fascinating!

We jumped in a taxi to make the drive back to the hotel, which sadly took us a lot longer than planned due to a horrible accident on the highway, which was blocking all of the lanes. Eventually we made it back in time for a bite to eat and an early night before the wake-up call and flight back the next morning.

I’m so glad I pushed myself to go out on this layover, as I could have easily gone straight to bed after arriving in Washington, and slept the whole 24 hour layover away!

Leave me a comment if you’ve ever visited Washington D.C., and let me know any must-do’s for next time!

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