In Alexandria and Arlington, there’s plenty to do and keep yourself entertained!

In the middle of October 2024, we really just wanted to get away from the doldrums of our suburban lives and going to and from work. When I say “we,” I mean my mother and sister, who were working full time jobs at the time. I was what I called funemployed as I waited for my visa to conduct research abroad to come through.

So we started brainstorming places to go, and we were about to go to Lancaster. We go to Lancaster almost every single year, as it’s one of the places I grew up going to from Baltimore, and it would’ve been a good opportunity to stock up on Christmas gifts.

But then I suggested to my mother checking out Alexandria, which is an hour and a half from where we live in Baltimore if you’re driving. You can also take the Amtrak from Baltimore’s Penn Station if you don’t feel like doing the legwork, which we considered before deciding on just driving there.

We were shocked at how cheap the hotels are in the fall here. We paid only $210 a night for our room in the Embassy Suites by Hilton Old Town, which is directly across the street from the DC Metro. If you needed to get into the city, this was really convenient and had a free extensive breakfast.

I’d never stayed in an Embassy Suites until then, but was seriously impressed by the building design, the suite, and the location of the Alexandria one. I’d stay here again! But that was only one part of our trip—let’s get into the details of our time in Alexandria and Arlington.

The Alexandria Historical District has so many shops, historical buildings, and lively festivities around.

We drove straight from Baltimore to the Alexandria downtown district, which, if you were like us, has free parking in the neighborhoods all the way at the bottom of the waterfront park. On the weekends it’s free and unlimited, so we just walked from the bottom of the riverside park and enjoyed the views there in the beginning half of our journey.

After walking from the bottom to the top, our first stop was the visitor center to utilize their bathrooms. We also grabbed a map in there, then checked out the Caryle House around the corner. Architecture is a big focal point here in Alexandria, and there are historical homes, rowhouses, and museums all around the main district.

There are also shops as well! We went into the bookstore, which I was disappointed but unsurprised by how their poetry collection was small, the Spice & Tea Exchange, and some smaller stores here and there.

At one point we stopped at Tatte Bakery, where I got a black sesame latte and tomato soup. The highlights here were the tomato soup and the pear tarte. We came back later and was disappointed by everything we ordered in the evening, which was kind of on us for coming twice.

In terms of specific places, we dropped by the Art Factory on the river to see the artisans and what they were up to in their studios. A little steep pricing wise, but I can see how much love and craft went into their work. I’d say it was price averagely, if not a little more because of the wealthier area.

We also swung by the Athenaeum, which had a tiny exhibit on local artists. After this, we walked around the neighborhoods a bit more, taking in the architecture, and chatted on a bench near the river.

Ada’s on the River has a fantastic dinner service.

We spent so much time in the main area because I had booked us a dinner reservation for Ada’s on the River at 4:30. At the time we arrived, there weren’t a ton of tables filled, so I imagine there was room for walk ins for sure. Later on it started getting really busy, so maybe get a reservation if you’re coming later in the evening.

I had saw this place recommended on Reddit, which is how I ended up deciding to go here. They have an open kitchen concept and utilize charcoal fires to grill their meats, which is what you can watch from your table inside. We were fascinated by how big the flames were getting.

My sister ordered a salad, as she was still kind of full from the soup she had earlier, but my mother and I both ordered the chicken that’s broiled on the open flame. And man that chicken was delicious. It was served with garlic yogurt, seared carrots, potatoes, and peppers.

The potatoes were a bit hard, but everything else in this meal was perfect. Days after eating here, my mother is still raving about how good this meal was. After dinner we headed to our hotel, where we laid in bed and rotted until the next day.

The Arlington National Cemetery everyone should visit at least once.

We woke up bright and early the next day, the Sunday, and picked up our free breakfast from the hotel. Our hotel also offered free drinks and snacks every day, but we did not take advantage of that. I enjoyed the fact they had a fresh to order egg station, as well as breakfast potatoes that were actually really good.

After that we packed up our stuff and drove fifteen minutes to the Arlington Cemetery. We accidentally went the wrong way at first and ended up at the Pentagon, but eventually found the visitor center for the cemetery. Parking was $3 an hour, and while we didn’t expect to spend so much time here, we did.

This cemetery is massive. We kind of waved it off at first thinking that there wasn’t a ton to see, but there are memorials and monuments, including the home of Robert E. Lee, located on the cemetery grounds. We went to JFK and Jackie first, as my grandmother was a huge JFK fan and collected merchandise on him.

After that we kind of wandered the grounds. We went to the estate next up the hill, spotting RBG along the way. There were friendship bracelets on her grave, which I found fascinating considering the upcoming election. After stopping at the Robert E. Lee house, we went up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

We stopped at that, as it had been three hours of walking around. The weather was perfect for this, but we seriously did not expect to spend so much time here! And we only scraped a small surface of what was available to see and pay our respects to.

The outlets in National Harbor are worth stopping by quickly for a pit stop.

The cemetery is literally next to the bridge to Washington D.C., so we took a nice little drive past the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and could see all of the Smithsonians in the distance. I love Washington, so driving past it in such a small way made me happy even. It’s my favorite city for a reason.

Anyways, we decided to make a pit stop at the National Harbor Tanger Outlets to see if they had any deals. We spent about an hour and a half here, eating some falafel and chicken kabob sandwiches from an Egyptian food truck before wandering into the stores.

I think this is a higher end outlet, and a lot of the stores did not really have good deals. I think Lancaster and the Pennsylvania outlets have this one beat in terms of my personal taste, but I could see very easily how this outlet was appealing to a wealthier demographic.

And that was the end of our trip! We drove home with little traffic, as we were taking the Maryland way, and then promptly took some naps.

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