Washington, DC Museum Loop

Duration: 1 Day | Washington, DC

 

Trip Highlights:

 

Join Starr for a hassle-free day in our Nation's Capital, where you can explore a museum of your choice at your own pace! We’ll provide convenient transportation to Washington, DC, with stops at the city's most popular museums. Choose from 4 drop-off and pick-up locations to make the most of your day. Please note: This trip includes transportation only; travelers are responsible for any tickets or admissions. Check out our "Useful Links" tab for more info on the attractions.

 

Stop #1 National Air & Space Museum

Drop off 11:30am / Pick up 5:00pm

Nearby attractions: National Museum of the American Indian, U.S. Botanic Garden, Hirshhorn Museum, U.S. Capitol/Capitol Campus

 

Visit the newly renovated Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum exhibiting aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, rockets, and other flight-related artifacts. Launch into the history of flight by surrounding yourself with icons of air and space travel. 

 

Free timed-entry passes are required for Air & Space Museum. Click here to reserve your pass online. Sign up for Starr's Washington, DC Air & Space Museum tour for included tickets.

 

Passes are required for tours of the U.S. Capitol. Click here to reserve your pass online.  

 

Stop #2 National Gallery of Art

Drop off 11:40am / Pick up 5:10pm

Nearby attractions: National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, National Archives Museum

 

The National Gallery of Art, one of the world's preeminent museums, preserves, collects, exhibits, and fosters the understanding of works of art at the highest possible museum and scholarly standards. The Gallery's collection includes some 141,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, decorative arts, and new media tracing the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present.

 

Free timed-entry passes are recommended for the National Archives Museum. Click here to reserve your pass online.

 

Stop #3 National Museum of American History/Museum of Natural History

Drop off 11:45am / Pick up 5:15pm

Nearby attractions: National Musuem of American History, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of African American History & Culture, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington Monument

 

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history from colonial times to the present. Among the items on display is the original Star-Spangled Banner. Through research, in-depth exhibits, extensive collections and public outreach, the museum presents America's history in all its complexity. The museum's collection features more than three million artifacts, from Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz to sheet music written by DC legend Duke Ellington.

 

Explore the Smithsonian's renowned National Museum of Natural History, dedicated to understanding the natural world and our place in it. Delve into the fascinating story of our planet, from its fiery beginnings through billions of years of transformation, and explore life on Earth through exhibitions and activities, collection objects and research that happens in the lab and in the field. The museum is larger than 18 football fields and is home to the largest natural history collection in the world. Highlights include the dazzling 45.5-carat Hope Diamond, the fascinating Ocean Hall, Mammals Hall, National Fossil Hall, Hall of Human Origins, Egyptian mummies, and the Insect Zoo. Don't miss the impressive African bush elephant in the museum's grand rotunda or the vibrant Butterfly Pavilion, home to hundreds of live butterflies.

 

Free timed-entry tickets are required to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Click here to reserve your pass online.

 

Free timed-entry tickets are required to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Click here to reserve your pass online. 

 

Free timed-entry tickets are required to go to the top of the Washington Monument. Click here to reserve your pass online up to 30 days in advance. 

 

Stop #4 National Portrait Gallery

Drop off 12:00pm / Pick up 5:30pm

Nearby attractions: American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Ford's Theatre, Chinatown

 

The nation’s first collection of American art offers an unparalleled record of the American experience, capturing the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people throughout three centuries. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum is home to one of the largest and most inclusive collections of American art in the world, including works by such stylistically diverse luminaries as John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, and Georgia O’Keeffe. The museum shares its magnificent National Historic Landmark building with the National Portrait Gallery.

 

With visual arts, performing arts, and new media, the National Portrait Gallery introduces you to the people who have shaped the country—poets, presidents, actors, activists, visionaries, villains...and everyone in between. Its collection weaves together story and biography from precolonial times to the present to tell the American story.

 

Need to Know:

• This trip includes transportation only; travelers are responsible for any tickets or admissions.

• This tour requires a lot of walking and standing; wear comfortable walking shoes.

• Every Starr trip includes deluxe round-trip motorcoach transportation from one or more of our departure locations. 

 

Accessibility:

• Smithsonian Museums: All Smithsonian buildings are accessible and at least one entrance is accessible to visitors with limited mobility. Every Smithsonian museum has a limited number of manual wheelchairs that visitors may borrow during their museum visit free-of-charge. These wheelchairs are available on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be reserved. Smithsonian museums do not offer motorized wheelchairs or scooters. Visitors are welcome to bring their own mobility devices such as wheelchairs or motorized scooters while visiting.

• Starr has a select quantity of wheelchair accessible motorcoaches available; therefore, we suggest you contact a Travel Advisor to discuss any needs you may have before reserving your trip.

Map of Museum Loop National Air & Space Museum United States Botanical Garden National Museum of the American Indian US Capitol Visitor Center Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden National Gallery of Art National Archives Museum National Museum of Natural History National Museum of American History National Museum of African American History Washington Monument US Holocaust Memorial Museum National Portrait Gallery American Art Museum Ford's Theatre Smithsonian Gardens map Haupt Garden at Smithsonian Castle