The train system is used by over paid government workers and people employed in DC. It is safe but you might not want your children exposed to those kind of people. Vehicle traffic around DC can be difficult. My friend used Uber and had no problems with it.
The subway is the best way to go, but you should prefer daytime travel to night travel, as the crime associated with it happens at night most of the time.
Need to do a bit more research than usual, though, as it has been undergoing extensive repairs, and has been following a pretty shitty schedule lately.
I'm not sure whether or not they're nearly done... man, I hope so, as we really need it to be functioning properly.
I can tell you that the Amtrak station you are most likely to arrive at is Union Station. That place connects you to the Marc commuter line, Metro, and I suspect the bus system.
Knowing that you're arriving at Union Station, here's a web site to help you with specific travel needs regarding mass transit in the area:
http://www.wmata.com/
They can help you plan out trips via mass transit quite nicely, and will tell you of any repairs going on with the system.
Arlington is probably a good bet. I'm more familiar with Maryland, but I don't have a tendency to look for any hotels in the area, so I don't know what's particularly pricy or not.
I would recommend, however, if you are coming out this way, you might take an interest in Silver Spring, MD, which is the heart of The Discovery Network.
Their headquarters is kind of fun to visit, and they have decent food nearby.
You can find it on the Metro Red line. The station there is quite new, as there has been a lot of work put into it recently to bring it up to date, and make it closer to a full-out station than a mere stop.
Oh, yeah, I've taken the Metro on many occasions, even at night, and never had a problem.
Any crimes on the Metro itself are pretty well advertised, as they're rare enough to attract attention.
It's *outside* the Metro, near the stops, where you do not want to tarry at night. If you're travelling as a group, you probably won't have any trouble.
I would have suggested staying at the Key Bridge Marriott.
And Clydes is a great place to eat.
Parking is notoriously awful in the DC area.
Drive if you must, but not in DC. Unless you like tickets. Even frivolous ones that you have to fight.
This is our opportunity. Making videos of the Amtrak trip and then of the Metro will be a big adventure.
It's kind of a pity you aren't staying in Maryland.
You could go to Brunswick, MD, and take the MARC commuter train into Union Station, switch to Metro, and go anywhere else you like in DC. Then get back to Union Station to catch the MARC back to Brunswick.
You'd get three different kinds of passenger train experiences that way.
Greetings from the Amtrak 280 to Penn Station, the first leg of our trip.
Amtrak has free wi-fi.
1. Tourism is big here, and therefore everything is sold at ripoff prices.
2. Amtrak was teh r0x0r. Loved it.
3. The "planetarium show" at the Air & Space Museum was a bunch of bubblegum cosmology narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who is a moron.
4. The Metro is pretty darn cool. The first thing I noticed was that the subway tunnels here are bored rather than trenched, so they're 100+ feet below the surface. In NYC the subways are directly beneath the streets.
5. The Washington Monument was built as a tribute to George Washington, but its phallic shape evokes thoughts of Bill Clinton.
6. We're staying at a hotel in Arlington and noticed that the old maxim continues to hold true: once you've seen New York City, every other "big city" just looks like White Plains.
The thing about DC isn't so much its size as its variety. That said, I don't know if NYC is similar to DC in that respect... I've never been to another place in the country that seemed as quitessentially a cultural center as DC.
Mon Oct 10 2016 09:58:16 PM EDT from IGnatius T FoobarComments so far:
1. Tourism is big here, and therefore everything is sold at ripoff prices.
2. Amtrak was teh r0x0r. Loved it.
3. The "planetarium show" at the Air & Space Museum was a bunch of bubblegum cosmology narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who is a moron.
4. The Metro is pretty darn cool. The first thing I noticed was that the subway tunnels here are bored rather than trenched, so they're 100+ feet below the surface. In NYC the subways are directly beneath the streets.
5. The Washington Monument was built as a tribute to George Washington, but its phallic shape evokes thoughts of Bill Clinton.
6. We're staying at a hotel in Arlington and noticed that the old maxim continues to hold true: once you've seen New York City, every other "big city" just looks like White Plains.
2) I knew you were a statist at heart.
3) All planetarium shows at more about entertainment than education.
I love Amtrak; I used to take it all the time between Connecticut and Syracuse. But outside the east coast, it's just way too expensive. And here it's too hard to get a seat; the Empire Builder is usually sold out even when I check for it months in advance (but then end up flying regardless because it's a 1/6th of the price).
I got a change to take a couple of the high-speed trains in France this summer, too (from Paris to Toulouse and back); those were fantastic. Fortunately it was between strikes. ;)
3) All planetarium shows at more about entertainment than education.
I grew up going to a school system that had a real planetarium, with a real star projector. We were given actual astronomy lessons. Once you've had that, the bubblegum entertainment shows are just that. Might as well just be watching an IMAX movie.
Also, since I'm way smarter than Neil deGrasse Tyson, I wouldn't have learned anything from him anyway.
I don't know if NYC is similar to DC in that respect... I've never been
to another place in the country that seemed as quitessentially a
cultural center as DC.
That much I noticed. There were people from all over the world. I don't know how many were tourists. But it had a pretty good "people from everywhere" feel, rather than the "there are subcultures here who are not assimilating" feel that you get in some metro areas. Also there was a guy urinating on a tree in public.