Most of our blog posts are just a recount of what we did and its primarily for our own memories….so if you read these, thank you and sorry if we bore you. Today, however, we want to do what good bloggers do and provide some useful information to our readers. In particular those who wants to travel to DC, with a family, in an RV and is a tight wad. Is anyone still reading? No? Well, I’ll write this anyway.
Both Steph and I had been to Washington DC in our youths and we were excited to visit again but this time share it with our kiddos. It seems like it should be the perfect place to visit for the budget traveler as all of the museums, memorials and monuments are free!! But, its the other costs that get you; lodging and transportation being the biggest ticket items. And while you can attempt to get everything in during a short visit we knew that it would probably take a full week to really see and experience things the way that suits us. We had just about thrown in the towel and resigned to the fact that it was going to be an expensive week when I struck gold in the lodging department and Steph struck gold in the transportation/parking department! Will these be real pay dirt, or just fools gold?!
There are some camping options that are in relative close proximity to the city but they are either very expensive or are dry camping (no hookups) which we are not set up to do for any extended period. However Louise F. Cosca Regional Park was $23/nt, had water and electric (took a phone call to verify that because web site wasn’t clear) and was a reasonable 20 miles from DC. They do not take reservations and they only have 23 sites. Of those 23 sites only a hand full are big rig friendly. The park is secluded and full of trees. It is very quiet and felt very safe. The bathroom is not great but its usable with a single shower in the men’s side (probably the same on the women’s). We felt this was a really great place for the price especially since we planned on most of our days being out and about in DC not in the campground. If you have a big rig and are traveling in high season (not sure when that is) you might be better off with a Sunday-Wed arrival as these days were quite empty during our stay. Even on the weekends the park maybe had 5 camping units in it. Also, Google maps will NOT take you to the park….it gets you close, but the map below I’ve tried to position the marker at the campground entrance. The campground is on the SE side of Thrift Rd. (across from the ball fields and tennis courts) and has a small sign right at the entrance that says “Family Campground” and and even smaller sign with a tent icon on it just across the street. The other quirky thing about this campground is they have a lock on the dump station drain, so you have to ask the office to have maintenance unlock it for you. So notify them well in advance if you will be leaving when the office is not open (eg. Sundays).
Lots of people recommend mass transit to get in, out and around the city. And I am a HUGE fan of mass transit. However, I get very frustrated when mass transit costs more than it does to maintain, fuel, insure and park my vehicle. Cosca has a metro station 10 miles away but you have to pay to park at the metro station which is $5.25. Then a metro ticket costs about $4 per person one way even for our 7 year old. So it was going to be about a $40 metro ride each day for a total of $45 including the parking…2X what we are paying for lodging!!
Fortunately I had read this blog post from a family of 5 who did the same math and decided driving was a better value for them. The 2 and 3 hour free parking they mentioned would probably not work for our epic long days we typically do. So I was looking at the paid parking figuring I’d be ok paying $20/day for parking. Many of the places I found were garages with low clearance and not suitable for our crew cab long bed truck. Then Steph read about “limited, free, all-day parking” over by the Jefferson Memorial in lots A, B and C. Steph’s cousin said that rush hour was usually over by 9:30 in the morning and went from 4-7 in the evening. So we drove in to DC late morning and arrived to almost completely empty lots A, B and C on Monday morning with smooth sailing traffic the whole way. The lots had nice big spaces to even fit a dually if you had one.
We typically took the MD-5 and I-495 route to lot A (you’ll pass C and B on your way to A….they are all very close) but depending on traffic Google routed us differently sometimes. Twice I dropped the family off at the first stop of the day before parking to save them a bit of a walk. (NOTE: I don’t know how to turn off traffic on a shared map…our drive was usually 40min each way).
We got around the city on foot which worked but was maybe a bit much for Brielle (our 7 year old). We tried to spread the walking out so we had time to rest while visiting a memorial or museum. The day of our capitol tour we opted to take the DC Circulator bus which is $1/person. It was a very rainy day and the capitol is about the furthest thing on the mall from lot A. The bus driver only charged us $2 even though the kid fare is same as adult fare. On our return trip a different bus driver only charged us $3. They have some multi day passes which are reasonably priced and could be a good option. Another option would be to spend an entire day (or two) doing the mall circuit by bike. We spread it out over our 4 days which all started out rainy, but with good weather I think bicycle would work great. I’m not sure I’d do the bike on days where I was going to be in a museum, I think it would be better for a trip around the mall.
We packed a lunch each day except the first where we paid Disney World prices for a pretty bland burger at the Smithsonian cafe. Everyone got cheeseburgers except me, I got a plain hamburger. Dacen and Caden were a bit surprised and Dacen asked, “why didn’t you get a cheeseburger?”. Before I could answer Caden figured it out…”he wants to save the 25 cents!” Yup, I’m that cheap. The cheese was probably worth the 2 bits…burger would have tasted like cheesy cardboard instead of just cardboard!
Our days usually wrapped up around 6:30 or 7 so we’d miss rush hour. With the late return times we ate dinner out 3 nights during our stay. One BBQ place that was ok, one time at Subway, and our last at Charlie’s.
So, if you want to spend more time in DC than money here are our recommendations:
- Lodging: $23, Louise F. Cosca Regional Park nightly fee
- Transportation to/from DC: $6, approximate fuel costs for 40 mile round trip
- Parking: $0, at lots A, B and C near Jefferson Memorial
- Transportation in DC: $0-$10, walk, bike or take the DC Circulator at $1/person/ride
- Food: $??, eat a big breakfast, pack a lunch and maybe eat out for dinner
- Entertainment: $0, museums, monuments and memorials are all free (there are some things you can pay for if you want)
*NOTE: We went into DC Monday through Friday so this all may fall apart on a weekend.