The information and related links below should help you in deciding how to entertain yourself, what to see, what to do, what to enjoy, where to explore, and when to do it all.

The info is arranged into 14 categories:

• Tourist Information, Local Media
• Events, Performances, Sports
• Politics and Government
• Historic Sites and Monuments, Museums and Galleries
• Restaurants, Nightlife, Shopping
• Neighborhoods, Recreational Areas
• Day Trips

Tourist Information

• Official Tourism Site for Washington, DC
• Washington DC City Pages, a guide book and search engine for both short-time visitors and long-time residents, alike
• DiscoverOurTown.com, a comprehensive internet travel and shopping guide

• Washington Post a great daily newspaper, is essential reading inside the Beltway; its Friday Weekend section covers entertainment; the web site's Visitor's Guide is crammed with useful materials for living in the city
• City Paper Washington's free weekly, comes out on Thursday; print versions are found in neighborhood stores; its forte is comprehensive coverage of entertainment for the coming week
• Washingtonian Magazine is a monthly with excellent coverage of goings on in the city

• Current Calendar of Events in the Washington metropolitan area, current, ongoing, and future
• Events by date the Washington Post lets you choose a date and lists all events
• The National Park Service hosts many annual or special NPS Events

Almost every day or night in DC, you can enjoy theater, dance, music, comedy, sports, or film. There are many local venues, and many of these venues offer student discounts. Use Ticket Place to obtain 1/2 price tickets on days of performance.

The best place to find movie times and reviews for the city’s dozens of theaters is the City Paper: Movie Show Times.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with six theaters, is the dominant performing arts organization in the city, and a leading institution in the country. The Kennedy Center offers a wide variety of local, national, and international troupes and performers in over 3300 performances a year. You can find individual performances or examine multiple Programs in opera, symphony, jazz, ballet, dance, theater, film, chamber music, humor, and celebratory festivals. Depending on availability, students can obtain 1/2 price tickets. Free performances are offered daily at 6:00 PM at the Millennium Stage of the Grand Foyer.

Other major performance venues include:

• The Verizon Center, for sports, concerts, ice shows, etc.
• Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, for outdoor summer headliners
• The National Theater, historic downtown theater often running Broadway musicals
• The Warner Theater
• Ford's Theater, for more intimate productions

• The Shakespeare Theatre, plays by the Bard and other classics, in superb productions
• Arena Stage, Washington's premier regional theater, emphasizing classics and major new works
• The Studio Theatre, a small company with edgy contemporary productions

Three comedy clubs worth note:

• DC Improv Comedy invites comics from around the nation
• The Capital Steps perform musical political satire
• Gross National Product lampoons each administration with great impersonators; it also runs a Scandal Tour by bus around the city

Sports

Many teams play in the Verizon Center downtown.

• The Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League
• The Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association
• The Washington Mystics of the Women’s National Basketball Association
• The Georgetown Hoyas play basketball in the Big East Conference

The Washington Redskins of the NFL play at FedEx Field in the Maryland suburbs.

DC United of Major League Soccer and the Washington Freedom of Women's Professional Soccer play at RFK Stadium in the District.

Area baseball teams include the Washington Nationals and the the Baltimore Orioles.

Politics and Government

• The White House, including further links to all the executive offices, the cabinet, federal agencies and commissions
• U.S. House of Representatives
• U. S. Senate
• U.S. Supreme Court
• Federal Judiciary
• District of Columbia
• DC Metropolitan Police

The National Mall holds most of the top sights: The White House, the Washington Monument; the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt Memorials; the Vietnam and Korean Memorials, and much more.

The US Capitol, its associated buildings, and surrounding grounds offers up lots of history. Across the street are the three buildings of the Library of Congress.

Arlington also hosts a large number of sights, especially Arlington National Cemetery with its Veteran’s memorials, Tomb of the Unknowns, Kennedy grave sites, Iwo Jima Memorial, and Carillon. The Pentagon is nearby.

• National Archives
, where key government documents are kept and displayed
• Bureau of Printing and Engraving, from where the money comes
• Ford’s Theater and Lincoln Museum, site of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination
• Dumbarton Oaks, for its eclectic museums and superb gardens
• Hillwood Museum and Garden, the Merriweather Post mansion
• Tudor Place Historic House, an old Georgetown estate
• The Octagon House, one of the earliest homes remaining from the earliest days of the capital, now devoted to architecture and design
• Washington National Cathedral, Episcopalian cathedral, with ecumenical emphases and cultural programs, site of many of Washington’s major political-religious ceremonies
• National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, on the campus of Catholic University, the largest Catholic church in America
• US Naval Observatory
• Mount Vernon, plantation home of George Washington, a few miles down the Potomac

One of the great institutions of world culture, the Smithsonian Institution should be on every visitor’s "must do" list. Many people do not realize that the Smithsonian is not merely a single museum or collection; it is a collection of museums with a collection of collections; there are 14 Smithsonian museums in Washington, DC, alone, along with the original Castle and the National Zoo.

The Smithsonian map can quickly direct you to your choice of web sites for:

• The Castle, the Institution's original Gothic revival building, now an information center
• The Anacostia Museum, focusing on Afro-American culture
• The Freer Gallery and Sackler Gallery for Asian art
• The Arts and Industries Building a Victorian structure originally holding the National museum
• The Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the concrete donut holding modern art, particularly sculpture
• The National Air and Space Museum, the incomparable collection of America's contributions to flying
• The National Museum of African Art
• The National Museum of American History with artifacts from the Star Spangled Banner to Dorothy’s ruby slippers
• The National Museum of Natural History, great for kids of all ages who like dinosaur bones, giant cockroaches, sparkling gems, and stuffed everything
• The National Portrait Gallery, unfortunately closed for renovation
• The National Postal Museum, holding the nation's amazing collection of stamps
• The National Zoological Park, now with pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian and all their furry friends
• The American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery

Not all of Washington’s great museums are associated with the Smithsonian.

• The Newseum explores the history of news and reporting
• The Holocaust Museum comprehensively examines the terrible and systematic genocide of Germany’s Nazi regime
• The National Building Museum celebrates architecture, design, planning, and engineering
• The International Spy Museum is the latest addition to the scene

Art museums, in particular, are especially fine.

• The National Gallery of Art has two wings, West for classic and East for modern, both exceptional in terms of collection, architecture, and special exhibits
• The Phillips Collection America's first modern art museum, is one of the country’s best small galleries
• The Corcoran Gallery of Art has an excellent American collection
• The National Museum of Women in the Arts
• The Kreeger Museum of modern art

• Washingtonian Magazine’s Dining Guide, with search capability and also their famous "best" lists: "100 very best" and "100 best bargains"
• The Washington Post Dining Guide is also comprehensive and reliable
• Zagat's Dining Guide has their familiar ratings by customer survey

Three clubs are particularly renown as music venues:

• The Birchmere Music Hall and Band Stand
• The 9:30 Club
• The Black Cat

Of course there are specialty shops all over Washington, but there are certain areas and Major Shopping Malls reached by Metro.

• Union Station
• Georgetown Park
• Old Post Office Pavilion
• Crystal City Shops
• Tysons Corner Center

Prime areas to window shop and browse are Georgetown, Golden Triangle, Downtown, Old Town Alexandria, and Friendship Heights.

Washington is more than just its core of government buildings and monuments. It’s also composed of neighborhoods, where most of its residents live, work, and relax. You’ll obviously get to know Dupont Circle quite well. The National Park Service is a good source for basic historic and cultural background on other neighborhoods as well as on Dupont Circle. And the Tourist Site allows you to plan detailed neighborhood tours with its Search DC feature.

Some of the best neighborhoods surround the Dupont Circle area:

• Georgetown, adjacent west of Dupont Circle, a famous historic district, partly residential and partly commercial, and also a hugely popular nightlife, restaurant, and shopping district
• Adams-Morgan, northeast of Dupont Circle up 18th Street: a much less ritzy, but just as popular, nightlife area famous for its wide array of ethnic eateries
• The Golden Triangle, essentially the nearby business district, adjacent south of Dupont Circle full of offices, shops, and restaurants, and bars
• Kalorama, adjacent northwest of Dupont Circle along Massachusetts Avenue’s embassy row, Washington’s ambassadorial quarter, all beautiful mansions and handsome town houses
• Foggy Bottom, south of Dupont Circle, home of George Washington University, the Kennedy Center, and international organizations, including the World Bank and the State Department

Other neighborhoods you might find worth exploring, or at least visiting occasionally, include

• Capitol Hill, the extensive and beautiful historic area west of the Capitol; mostly residential, it holds some good commercial strips, too
• Downtown, between the Capitol and White House north of Pennsylvania Avenue, newly revitalized with the Convention and MCI Centers, theaters, restaurants, hotels, and stores
• Cleveland Park, and Woodley Park, two neighborhood strips developed along Connecticut Avenue around their Metro stops
• Alexandria, Virginia, with its Old Town, is historically preserved and a strong shopping and nightlife district reachable by Metro

Washington is layered with parks, gardens, and scenic areas. Many of the recreational areas are managed by the National Parks Service.

• Rock Creek Park is huge, one of the largest forested urban areas in the country, with opportunities for picnicking, hiking, biking, skating, horseback riding, tennis and golf.
• National Capital Parks Central manages the central monumental core of the city
• National Capital Parks East manages a series of lesser know parks starting around the Capitol and the Anacostia River and extending far into Maryland
• The Potomac Scenic Trail links three major trail routes along the Potomac River, including the C&O Canal and the Mount Vernon Trail; they’re great for hiking, biking, and camping
• The historic C&O Canal stretches 185 miles west to Cumberland, Maryland, including a major visitor’s center 15 miles out at the Great Falls of the Potomac

The National Arboretum is a hilly collection of arbor gardens, most famous for its Bonsai collection.

The series of interconnected parks and trails is a bicyclist’s paradise. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association works hard to maintain and expand the extensive system of Washington biking trails.

• Baltimore Virtual Tour is a comprehensively linked web site for visitors
• The City of Baltimore has plenty of tourist information
• The Baltimore City Paper, like its Washington cousin, provides up to date info on entertainment and events

The City of Annapolis is Maryland’s well preserved colonial and current capital, the center of Chesapeake Bay sailing, and the site of the United States Naval Academy

• Hometown Annapolis is a local web paper for up to the minute events
• Annapolis Information and Links provides general visitor information

The City of Charlottesville, Virginia is especially famous for one man and two sights. The man is Thomas Jefferson, and the sights are the home he built and the university he founded.

• Monticello
• The University of Virginia

Five major civil war sites lie in a semicircle to the west of the Capital.

• John Brown made his bloody raid at quaint Harper’s Ferry, where the Shenandoah flows into the Potomac
• Manassas was the first battle, when both sides learned how long and awful the war might be
• Antietam marks the bloodiest day in all US history
• Pretty Fredericksburg is a monument to the folly of battle, when charge after ridiculous charge failed
• Gettysburg marks the highwater mark of the Confederacy, which was on the defensive ever after its loss

For more recreational and less sobering pursuits, the Appalachian Mountains call out west and the Atlantic beaches call to the east.

• Shenandoah National Park offers possibilities of hiking, driving, climbing, camping, caving, canoeing, fishing, etc.
• Rehoboth, Delaware has become Washington’s major summer resort community
• Rehoboth Beach is only one of a series of beaches along the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia shores