Living in a Tourist Trap

Happy Belated 4th of July! I hope everyone, in the US, had a nice, relaxing long weekend. It's always nice when holidays fall next to a weekend to extend that weekend to a nice, LONG weekend.

I have learned long ago, through lots of personal experience, that I no longer wish to drive anywhere during a holiday weekend - doesn't matter the time of year....despite the rising gas prices, loads of people travel and they're all traveling by car. If I MUST travel during holidays, it will be days before and days after to avoid the heavy people traffic....but if I'm able to control my schedule (which I usually am), then I will avoid travel altogether and enjoy the comforts of home.

It's hard, however, when you live in a tourist trap. For me, it's our nation's capitol - Washington DC. I don't work in DC but I'm in the district a few times a month, either to play sports, meet up with friends or just enjoy the monuments. Unfortunately, it's the 'enjoying the monuments' that doesn't seem to happen as often as probably any local would like to admit. I think a big part of it is because we live here and we take it for granted. Throughout the spring and summer, I'm playing softball on the grounds of the Washington Monument and sometimes outside of the White House. At first it was cool to think that I use to come to visit these places as a child and just look at the monuments and buildings in awe. Now, I take it for granted that millions of people come to DC specifically to see these things. Same with the museums. I would love to explore more of what the Smithsonian Museums have to offer but the thought of crowds and tourists usually turn me away.

This past weekend, my sister and her kids visited. For weeks leading up to the visit, I was thinking of things to do with them since they've been here multiple times. And since the kids are 4 and 7, you need to find them something to keep them well occupied. I toyed with the idea of day trips to Richmond or Annapolis but the chicken in me shied away from it because I just didn't want to deal with traffic. So we settled for a day in DC at the Air and Space Museum. I haven't been to the one in DC for years! It had been so long that I thought the museum was on the opposite side of the Washington Mall....I still think I was right but I actually had to reference a map to find where the actual museum was. I hate looking like a tourist in my own backyard!

I think the kids had fun. The weather definitely cooperated, even if it was extremely humid....and there were LOADS and LOADS of people standing in line just to get into each of the museums. It was my worst nightmare come to life. But it wasn't all that bad - we walked around the Air and Space museum and was even able to enjoy some of the Folk Life Festival going on downtown.

I am not trying to deter people from coming out to our nation's capitol. It is beautiful, especially in the Fall and Cherry Blossom Season. Just some useful suggestions if you're planning on it - try to use public transportation (ie - the Metro) - it's clean, it's easy and it's semi-fast. And when you're going into a museum, if you can, try to avoid bringing strollers - some of those places, with their crowds of people, just are not stroller-friendly. AND with so many foreigners roaming around in every direction, manners and etiquette kind of gets thrown out the window.

I thought it was fitting that this morning, Yahoo! had a story about the world's worst tourists:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080707/wl_time/mostobnoxioustouriststhefrench
It's an interesting article. In case you're wondering, the worst tourists are the French...followed by Indians (saw a lot of those this weekend) and Chinese (I'm so not surprised - since I also seem to look down upon them when I'm traveling) as the world's worst tourists.