I just wanted to add a little bit more information about our experiences getting around the DC area. I remember from our family trip in high school that we took a train from the Indianapolis area to DC and then got around to the different sites on public transportation (the buses and the subway mostly). This was the original plan for our trip this week – to leave our van parked here and get around by public transportation. However, when we got here, the owner of the house we are staying at let us know that it would probably be cheaper to drive into town and park somewhere than it would be to take public transportation. Well, this changed things a bit. At first I couldn’t see how taking public transportation would be more expensive, but I was proven wrong.

For Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, that is what we did. Parking spots were easy to find via your favorite app (we used Parking Panda but there are many other popular ones). Parking was anywhere between $13 and $22 and we reserved the parking the day before just to be safe. The down side to this mode was the traffic, which is pretty bad in the morning. I think that it definitely took longer to get into and out of the city this way. The other drawback was finding the parking spots. I think that the Parking Panda app gave a lot of good information about the parking garages where the reservations were made, but it was difficult to experience it before actually getting to the place.

For Wednesday, mostly just to have the experience of riding the subway, we relied on public transportation. That morning we drove to the nearest subway station (Greenbelt) and parked there for the day. If you had an existing pass, all day parking for a vehicle was around $6; otherwise it was around $9. There were 7 passes that our hostess let us borrow (which otherwise you would have to purchase about 6 weeks in advance and have them mailed to your house). It was pretty easy to “recharge” the passes at the subway station with more money since each pass had about $1-2 left on them. The trains were very quick and very efficient which was the up side to the trip. However, for our little family of 7 to travel around for the day it cost us roughly $10 per person round trip (plus parking), so about $75 total. As the kids like to hear me say, “Good Googly Moogly!”

In the end, I guess time is money and money is time. Taking the subway was a different experience for us and now part of our adventure. But for the rest of the trip we’ll be driving, listening to our own music, and enjoying the company of one another.