Plan a Staycation in DC, Washington D.C., USA (B)

A lot of people who live in Washington DC take for granted all the things there are to do here. But if your budget is tight, you should consider a DC staycation and fully take advantage of everything the city has to offer.

As a local you probably know the best times to visit the Social Safeway and when to avoid driving through Georgetown traffic (all the time). But did you know that you can actually sit in the main reading room of the Library of Congress and not just see it from the little glass box at the top? All you have to do is register as a reader, get your own ID card and you have access to any reading room in the library. So if it’s too hot to sit outside, you can head inside and do your summer reading in the largest library in the world. It’s located at 101 Independence Avenue SE, and it’s open from 10 AM to 5:30 PM daily, though the reading room hours vary.

A huge advantage to living in DC is that you don’t have time constraints for certain things, so things like White House and Capitol Building tours are extremely convenient compared to tourists coming from out of town for only a short time. You’ll need to contact your representative to get passes and the process can take weeks while they run a background check, but once you get cleared, you can spend a lovely afternoon checking out the president’s home and the rooms where our policymakers vote and make laws. It’s a lot more interesting than it looks on C-SPAN. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).