Washington DC Tourist Guide

Washington DC is a very popular city to visit as it is the capital of the United States. There are so many different places to visit and things to see in the city such as museums, monuments, and more. With so many places to see, it is important to map out your trip ahead of time. In this story map, learn about Washington DC and start to organize your trip based on the must see places for you.

Before we begin with the maps, here is a brief video from Expedia about traveling to Washington DC.

Now that we have a feel for visiting the city, let us begin looking at the different points of interest. Click on the map below to see different locations in the city and details about each location. The black points represent museums, the green markers are monuments and memorials, and the green shaded areas show national parks. In addition, the metro lines are displayed to help you with travel between different places.

On the map, the museums (black points) are filtered to only show museums within a 0.5 mile buffer of the metro lines. Since there are so many places to visit, it's important to focus on the places easily traveled to in order to maximize the number of places you get to see.

By clicking on a black point, you will see the name of the museum at that location. By clicking on the green markers, you will see the name of the monument/memorial and a picture. When you click on a green shaded area, the name of that park and its location with be displayed. Finally, when you click on a colored line, the name of the metro line will be displayed as well as a picture of the metro map with the stops.

We can now begin to explore the below widgets and features involving our map. In the web app, click on the different icons to try out different tools. Here is a summary of some of the tools available in the web app:

• Search Bar (top left corner): Type in any address or place in the search bar to find it on the map.

• Near Me (first icon under the search bar): Input an address or place (or click one on the map) to find nearby museums to that location. You can change the buffer depending on how far or close you want the search results to be. This is useful since the museums on the map are more spread out so you can determine the ones that make the most sense for you based on location.

• Screening (second icon under the search bar): Using the screening tool, input a place name and buffer distance to determine all nearby locations (this is similar to the Near Me tool). Different from the Near Me tool, however, you can also use the draw function to draw on the map and see locations within that area or within a distance of a buffer. For example, when using the polygon draw mode, draw any polygon around an area on the map and it will display all of the locations within that area.

• Bookmark (third icon under the search bar): Click on the bookmarks to display different parts of the map at various extents. You can also add a bookmark of your own by zooming to an extent on the map and then clicking the add button.

• Legend (icon with the lines in the top right corner): Click on the legend icon to see the interpretation of the symbology of the map.

Hopefully from this story map, you have gained the tools needed to plan your next trip to Washington DC! For additional resources, please scroll down.

Click on the buttons below to explore various websites with more information about visiting Washington DC.