Hi i am a south african travelling to washington dc for the first time, i am accommpanying my son who will attend the people to people world leadership forum in washington dc in april 2009. Please advise me on where to stay, a clean safe hotel, with a breakfast, in and around, arlington, alexandria virginia area. My son will be at Herndon area for five days, I need to know what to be aware of , how will i get around, etc,please help
shanita

Please post your nightly budget (in USDs) if you want specific hotel recommendations.

April is a pretty expensive time of year because of the Cherry Blossom Festival.

www.wmata.com is the website for the Metro system for the DC area.

Will you son be staying separate from you? It sounds that way.

Maybe you should check Rossyln and Crystal City to start with. Both are in Virginia and are accessible by Metrorail. I don't think there is a Metrorail station in Herndon, but I am not sure.

Rosslyn and Crystal City, which are areas of Arlington, would be good choices for accomodations. If you don't find anything that suits you in those areas, you can look at Courthouse, Clarendon and Ballston which are 3 other areas in Arlington near a Metrorail (subway) stop. (Rosslyn and Crystal City also have Metro stops.) For whatever hotel you decide upon, be sure that it is near a Metro stop because that is the way you will want to travel into D.C.
It appears that your son will be staying in Herndon. There is no Metrorail service to Herndon should you want to visit him there. You could take a combination of Metrorail and a local bus to get there, however. (See the Trip Planner on www.wmata.com for details) It would probably take something over an hour to do it by public transportation.

Shanita, Why are you looking in the Alexandria and Arlington area for hotels? Neither are near Herndon, which as noted, is not an easy get by public transport/

As others have asked, what is your budget?

The World Leadership Forum has a busy 5-day agenda that keeps the kids really busy all day. She might be going to Herndon just twice: To drop him off and pick him up.

hi All
Thank you for posting replies. Firstly, yes, my son will be at Herndon, so i need to drop him off and pick him up just twice, then, he will stay with me for two nights. I did note that Herndon is far from DC so I want to be near a metro rail so I can also tour Dc.My budget was around $60- $70.00 per night including a breakfast at least. I did view websites like expedia etc. and some reviews about some 1 star places were terrible.However, if there is something someone can recommend please let me know. thanks

You should look into bidding on Priceline. Several nice hotels have recently been won for dates in April for rates in the $50-80 range. You can learn about PL at www.biddingfortravel.com, which reports on which hotels have been won and for what bids.

I would agree with Priceline as an option because those rates are going to be hard to come by this time of year. Also, it sounds as if you are going to have a car? If so, check the hotel website for the cost of parking before committing to something non refundable. The closer to DC and in DC, the higher the parking rates ($15-$35 a night). Staying slightly farther out might take you longer to get into town to tour but parking will probably be free and hotels may offer a free shuttle to the nearest metro station. I was thinking Falls Church, West Alexandria and Tyson's Corner.

It would make more sense to just rent a car twice for one day, as needed to get to Herndon and back to the city.

1* properties are often unsafe. I think your best chance to get anything close to that budget in a decent place is to use Hotwire or Priceline. If you've never used them before, betterbidding.com explains how they work.

You don't mention your exact dates, but I see a 3* hotel in the Chantilly area (near Dulles airport) for $62/night for the last week in April and it includes breakfast. It matches most closely the Hyatt Place Chantilly from the Hotwire hotel list on http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?showtopic=91&

It gets good reviews here http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserR...a.html#REVIEWS

Perhaps someone else can comment on how you might be able to travel from there to/from central Washington. All the hotels closer to the city are much more money.

Dear All, I appreciate all the input and hope to start bidding on Priceline this evening, I need to confirm my accommodation soon soon, Remember to update me of the weather during April and should I pack warmer clothing? take care

Weather during April is variable. My daughter went to college in DC and said that spring was when you could look at students and tell where they were from by what they were wearing: The kids from Minnesota were wearing shorts and the kids from Florida were wearing parkas and mittens. Normal daily high temperatures are about mid-60s and nighttime lows in the 40's. And be prepared for rain.

shanita, if you've never used Priceline, you should read through and perhaps get help on either betterbidding.com or biddingfortravel.com On betterbidding.com there's a win calendar that you can see what other people have gotten on the dates you're here.

PS. 1 thing to know about bidding on PL from outside the country, when you submit your address, you'll need to use a 5 digit number for the zip code (postal code). Any number will work-00000 or 99999 or 90210 or whatever. The rest of the address info should be your real address.

Wow, I hadn't known about that "win calendar". What a great feature! It streamlines the little chart that I had been making for myself for years whenever I was planning to bid on PL. And some of the win prices shown for April in DC should be very encouraging for Shanita.

Hi All,
after much research, i have noted this Inn of Virginia Arlington, on lee highway,This was on Ratebookers at $70.95 per night. How does this sound?Is it clean,safe and the review says the shuttle drops you at the metro station.Please let me know how you feel?The other option i saw was Inn of Rosslyn Hotel? I guess that i need to rest but while my son is on his forum, i will try to tour as well/ how can I travel to New York and how far away is it from Washington?

Shanita, have you looked at the reviews for this hotel on TripAdvisor? For that very very low price, especially in April, I would not expect much, so do look at what recent visitors describe:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev..._Virginia.html

Another note of advice, you tagged this thread for "Washington", not "Washington DC", so if you have further questions, do tag them for the "DC" Washington, not the one on the Pacific coast -- not always obvious to our foreign visitors, I know. Not criticising, just want your questions to reach the readers most likely to have good answers for you.

HI Kayd, thanks for the advice, inn of rosslyn seems out, will tag dc too,