Lynne_from_UK

My husband and I (both 63) fly into Washington in September for 3 weeks. We intend to hire a car and tour round Virginia and Maryland. We will spend a couple of days in Washington and, perhaps, visit Baltimore - worth it? - but, otherwise, would like to avoid the major cities. My husband is particularly interested in the Civil War but we also love the countryside, seaside etc and would like to find the scenic routes, wild life etc. Open to any suggestions on routes, places to visit, places to stay etc.

We would like to book accommodation as we go but are having difficulty finding up-to-date books for accommodation in the Mid-Atlantic region. Any ideas? Remember we are from the UK.

girlonthego

Welcome Lynne! Well, you have picked a great place to tour civil war history! Virginia is full of it.My kids study more civil war than anything else in their Social Studies classes.
Some highlights to see:
The Smithsonian in Washington. Wonderful museums and free. I would book ahead to stay in the city, especially during the week when business travelers take up the hotel spaces.
Mount Vernon (near Washington) was George Washington's home.
Monticello-Thomas Jefferson's home which is located near Charlottesville VA. You can head west from Washington and go down 81 South. Take 81 to 64 East and go to Charlottesville, Richmond and Williamsburg along 64. If you want, you can drive Rt 5 between Richmond and Williamsburg and stop at the old plantations along the way. (They serve lunch at some of them.)
Richmond has some great civil war history dotted around town. Just south of Richmond is a city called Petersburg. In Petersburg, they have a civil war reinactment called Pamplin Park. You can google it for more info.
Charlottesville will be a nice town to stay in. Just around Charlottesville, you can drive the Blue Ridge Parkway which is just stunning scenery and great hiking. The mountains are very beautiful here in VA.
Richmond downtown in Shockoe Slip is nice area to stay in(try the Omni for modern and easy walk to restaurants, Try the Jefferson for expensive but very nice old richmond hotel).
Sorry if it sounds like I am rambling. I am just typing as I think of different places. You can keep driving east on 64 till you come to the Atlantic Ocean. Here you will find Va Beach. It is a nice beach with a boardwalk. Try the Hilton or the Marriott Courtyards. You can head north on 13 (?) to the eastern shore of Maryland where there are nice beaches and some quiet ones and some honky tonk ones (Ocean City). Then take rt 50 west back inland to Washington/Baltimore.
I would see if you could get AAA's info on the mid-atlantic. They have tourbooks and maps that serve the area.
Williamsburg is of course filled with Revoluntionary war stuff. You may find it interesting. Jamestown is celebrating 400? years this summer. Yorktown also has many historical things to see.
I am sure there are millions of stopping off points along the way for civil war history. Enjoy! Hope I have been able to answer some questions.

AnnRiley

Hello,
My husband & I did this type of hol 2 years ago. (we are from UK also)

The old grey matter is not too good but here goes with the brief idea of what we did etc.

Flew into Philidelphia, did a couple of days in Lancaster County pensylvannia, (Amish life and lovely country drives).then drove down to Gettysburg and saw the monuments and museum all civil war stuff and fab!!
then took skyline drive (again lovely scenery) into Virginia, We incorportated
Plantations about 3 ( some excellent ones such as Thomas Jefferson home) also visited the place were Robert E Lee signed his defeat declaration, this is def worth a visit. (did see lots of other bits and bobs, tried to incoporated nice little towns on way to main biggies!! we went down to to Colonial Williamsburg, stopping a Jamestown both really fab and worth visit, stayed 2 days.
We came home via chesapeake up maryland stopping at a lovely town called St. Micheals,a lovely coastal town, then back to phili.
A starting point in planning my holiday, was look at holiday brocures and pinch some of their itinery ideas and I got travel books from my libary i.e. Fodors/lonely planet etc, anything to do with what i was planning..
we loved this holiday and wish we had spent more time (1 full day in Gettysburg esp) as the museum etc is just great to look around...with loads of civil war stuff..and try and see the plantations

if you need any other info just ask, though i should have made more notes as
to names of things were saw, hope my bit helps..

GeorgeW

girlonthego gives you an excellent itinerary.
Civil War Battlefields- Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, just over the state line with Maryland. Antietam, Maryland. Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, just over the line from Virginia and Maryland. Manassas in northern Virginia. The Fredericksburg vicinity has several important battlefields and the memorial for General Stonewall Jackson, killed at Chancellorsville. Cold Harbor. Richmond, home of at least two museums as well.

Presidential homes- Monticello, home of Jefferson is a must see. President Monroe's much humbler home is ten miles away from Monticello. Washington's Mt. Vernon is in northern Virginia. Richmond will have the Confederate presidential home of Jefferson Davis.

Several James River plantations, some dating from before the War for Independence, are open to the public, including that of King Carter, the wealthiest man in Colonial America.

Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown (lasty battle of the War for Independence) are worth seeing.

In western Virginia, Skyline Drive is a fun drive. Luray Caverns and the Natural Bridge are worth seeing.

Maryland's rural Eastern Shore might be fun for a few days. Towns to tour are St. Michaels, Chestertown, Tilghman Island, Oxford, Rock Hall, Easton and remote Smith Island with its crab culture.

Dukey

Wild life and seashore sounds like a trip to Chincoteague on the Eastern Shore for the wild ponies might be of interest.

Another CW site would be Appomattox in Virginia.

Thomas6

The Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia is a possibility also, with Harpers Ferry and historic Shepherdstown which is just a few miles from Antietam Battlefield. There are excellent restaurants in Shepherdstown and lodging as well.

LG2

A lot of great suggestions above. We spent a couple days in DC then drove to Colonial Williamsburg, stopping at Fredericksburg to see a few Civil War sites. Only had a week and spent most of the time at Historic Triangle, Newport, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Try these sites for info:

http://www.civilwartraveler.com/
http://www.historictriangle.com/
http://home.nps.gov/applications/par...tate.cfm?st=va

BlueSwimmer

I'm adding a plug for the town I grew up in, Annapolis, MD, a lovely colonial waterfront town, and the town I live in now, Alexandria, VA, another lovely colonial waterfront town. (I detect a pattern.) Alexandria is right across the Potomac from D.C. and is easy to visit by metro (King Street station).

Here is a great website with scenic drives in Maryland. http://tinyurl.com/2v6g8t

PaulRabe

Some other ideas
-- Fort McHenry just outside Baltimore, from whence came the U.S. national anthem. Yes, I know you're a visitor from the U.K., but it's always an eye-opener to visit a site where your nationality is "the enemy." It was for me at Chatequguay Battle NHS, anyway.
-- Shenandoah National Park. You want scenic routes and wildlife near DC? Well, this is it.

RuthMc

If you go to Gettysburg, which I highly recommend, go to the visitor's center and hire one of their guides who will take you around the battlefield in your vehicle and tell you about the battle. It's a wonderful way to have the history come alive.

Also, if you do visit Richmond, Petersburg, Williamsburg, etc., try to avoid I-95 from Washington south to those areas. The traffic on that section is awful. If you can't avoid it altogether, stay off it going south during evening rush and north during morning rush. We have some of the worst traffic in the US here in the DC area.

Rehoboth Beach in Delaware is on the Atlantic and should be nice at the time you'll be here. It has great restaurants It's just north of the Maryland beaches girlonthego mentioned.

Have a wonderful time.

BlueSwimmer

PaulRabe is correct. Fort McHenry is an interesting quick place to visit. But it is actually IN Baltimore at the end of Locust Point (my parents grew up here and my sis now lives "down the Point" as Baltimore natives say.)

Locust Point is a former working class neighborhood that is starting to become trendy with young singles and couples.

There are some good restaurants (The Wine Market for upscale food, Rallo's for a B-more tradition- sour beef and dumplings) but you can still see traditional Baltimore life with row houses, people sitting on their stoops, painted door screens, etc.

In nice weather, you can take the water taxi (http://www.thewatertaxi.com) from Harborplace (a glorified mall with a pretty view) to Ft. McHenry, to Little Italy, to Fells Point, to Canton, to the Aquarium (well-worth a visit if you like sea life), to the Harborview condos at the foot of Federal Hill (a very pretty/cool neighborhood). An easy way to see a lot of the city without a lot of parking hassles.

Lynne_from_UK

What a great response! Thank you to all for taking the time and trouble. It has confirmed our original ideas for the trip and given us lots of extra details and insights to help fine tune.

Still need a good book on accommodation that we can use to book ahead as we go. A copy of the AAA TourBook for the mid-Atlantic would be ideal, girlonthego, but I have tried and tried both this time and for previous trips to the USA but you have to be a member to get anywhere on the AAA website.

Can anyone advise on the best way to get into and out of Washington from Dulles Airport? We plan to do this at the beginning of the trip (possibly at the end) and then hire a car from the Airport to avoid driving in Washington.

chuut_riit

Lynne:

I'm not sure if I understand what you're asking. There is a Washington Flyer coach service from Dulles to the West Falls Church Metro station for $9. You could take the Metro into Washington from there to avoid driving in the city. If you are asking about driving directions to/from Dulles, there is a dedicated road, called the Dulles Access Road, that is only for people going to/from the airport, and which provides easy access to I-66 and/or I-495 (the beltway), which you could use to get to Baltimore.

LvSun

Check out Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
http://www.nps.gov/hafe
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2940.html

babyfat

i live in baltimore. i HIGHLY recommend that you NOT come here.

FauxSteMarie

The busiest season for group tours in and around DC is the spring. The second busiest season is the fall. In the spring we get many groups of 8th graders on school trips from all over the US. In the fall we get senior trips. Groups tend to avoid summer because (a) school is out and (b) it can be very hot and humid.

So, what I am telling you is there will be a lot of groups here when you come and they can fill the hotels in DC.

I agree with some of the other suggestions posted. It is just a question of choosing your priorities. None of us can do that for you. Since you are from the UK, I would suggest you do a lot of research online because you are unlikely to have a lot of the tour books Americans use easily available in the UK.

I use the American Automobile Association (AAA) books for hotel reservations sometimes, but the guide book portion of those books is not as strong; it can be a starting point. I don't know how you would get those books in the UK.

For scenery it would be hard to beat Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive in Virginia. You can get there easily from DC in a little over an hour. Start at Front Royal and work your way down.

I wouldn't overdo booking hotels ahead of time as you might end up over structuring your trip. Since you will be here before the leaves start to change (which can result in a huge crush of rooms in and around Skyline Drive), you should not have a problem booking as you go.

For the seaside, I suggest taking the Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake Bay and visiting Rehoboth Beach. You could work your way down along the Atlantic, crossing over the Bay Bridge Tunnel into Norfolk and then go north to visit Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown.

If you did that, then you could continue north back to DC or head west to visit Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. After visiting that, you could pick up Skyline Drive and head north on it, looking at the scenery, and then end up in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and/or the Harper's Ferry historic site. Going back to DC to catch your flight home, you could divert to see the Gettysburg Battlefield. Doing DC-Bay Bridge-Rehoboth-beach drive along the Atlantic-Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel--Norfolk--Colonial Williamsburg, etc.--Monticello--Skyline Drive--Gettysburg--DC could easily consume 3 weeks. If you have more time, you could also have a look at Civil War Battlefields (they are all over), plantations along the James River outside of Richmond, VA, and the Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Petersburg, VA (put your car on a ferry over the James River from Colonial Williamsburg).

This should easily fill 3 weeks. Please remember that driving distances in the US can be huge. The itinerary I have offered you is a very compact itinerary. You could do it driving no more than 3 hours per day (more if that is what you want), but it would not be a killer.

There are motels all over. Don't worry. You will not sleep in your car.

If you have further questions, do not hesitate to ask.