Good Afternoon All
First - thank you all for your help on hotels, etc in DC. I am trying to book hotels and air. Looks like we will be staying in/around Du Pont Circle. What would you suggest as to which airport to go in and out of. BWI on a map looks a long way off---maybe Dulles? All help is really appreciated. Thanx
shrink

National is the closest but is usually more expensive than the other two. Dulles is not far but is a pain in the butt. Give yourself plenty of time (more than what the airlines recommend) due to long lines in security. BWI is easier but can take 45 min. to over an hour.

Dulles is about as far away as BWI but I think ground transportation to your lodging site is more reasonable from BWI.

The question as to how to get to 'downtown DC' from BWI has been posted here several times. Suggest you plug 'bwi to dc' into search box and see what pops up. I don't know the particulars because I don't use them, but there is a train very close to airport that will take you downtown from where you can catch other modes of transportation including metro and taxi. Metro has a Du Pont Circle stop.

http://stationmasters.com/

GL!

I always do National - you just hop in a cab and in 10 minutes you're in town. Don;t know prices - since the shuttles from NYC go into National.

National is certainly the most convenient, since it has its own Metro subway station. The other two both require that you take a taxi into town, or a shuttle bus or train to access the nearest Metro station. One might be a few miles farther than the other, but the difference isn't significant enough to outweigh any airfare differences.

Fly into National if you can. It's worth the extra money, although I find that from Boston it's not usually more expensive than the other airports.

Thanks folks for all the help -- I really appreciate it.
shrink

Shrink, be sure to check AirTran. We flew with them out of National. Got a good deal and it was convenient. We flew into BWI, and it was a nice, and easy, trip from the Marc station to Union Station in DC. The leaves had turned and it was like taking a fall rail tour.