I’ve had family, and now friends, in town for about two weeks, which has allowed me to do something I love… play tourist in my own town.
Some things I’d recommend to anyone, anywhere:
Walk, bike and/or take public transportation. You get to know a city better when you’re seeing and experiencing it. For me, this also allows for more spontaneity, stumbling across something you didn’t know was there, checking out something that piques your interest, and being a little more flexible with the path you take. If you want to bike around downtown DC, all of the interconnected bike trails and new bike lanes make it really easy and enjoyable.
Subscribe to local newsletters and follow local social media accounts so you know what’s happening in your backyard. Thanks to someone in my Instagram feed sharing a TikTok, I learned about the corpse flower blooming at the US Botanic Garden, that I took friends who love gardening to see yesterday.
Support local museums and gallery spaces. Check out exhibits, the more obscure the better. You never know what you’ll find. Next time you’re in DC, I’d recommend the National Postal Museum, the National Building Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts (when it reopens next Fall). I also can’t say enough good things about the Laurie Anderson exhibit at the Hirshhorn now.
Make a spreadsheet or a Google Map with restaurants and bars that you’d like to try so that when you’re in a new neighborhood you have something to reference. Sometimes when you have little clusters of those places it can also be an impetus to check out a new neighborhood. (It was how I learned to like LA, and how I took a totally huge, overwhelming city and made it manageable.) If you don’t know where to start, a local food writer’s Instagram is a good place to start. And if you’re in a larger city, the Michelin Bib Gourmand list is, too. Here’s DC’s.
Be open to your guests’ interests. When my dad was in DC last week, he wanted to see the monuments — specifically the war monuments. So I took him to the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — and one I’d never seen before: the Vietnam Women's Memorial.
I also really like Dan Pink’s 5 tips for optimizing your trip abroad — which can also, totally, be applied locally.
If you have a good tip or suggestion for getting to know your city better and being a tourist in your own backyard, drop it in the comments. I’d love to read it.
You had me Laurie Anderson. And bikes, of course. :) Check out "I Am A Man" at the Corcoran School of Art & Design. Photographs by Khary Mason and others are on exhibit.