The list keeps growing. The picks stay opinionated.
6 picks from Washington DC.
A cabin with a porch that looks at mountains, not neighbors. Two hours west of DC, you're on Skyline Drive by lunch, sitting in front of a fire pit by dinner. No agenda except the hike you pick in the morning and the bottle of wine you open at 4pm.
Direct from Dulles to a city that runs on bicycles and brown cafés. Stay in the Jordaan, eat Indonesian food better than you'll find in Indonesia, spend an afternoon at the Rijksmuseum that doesn't feel like homework. Amsterdam rewards the long weekend more than the blur-through.
A direct flight to Heathrow and you're in a city that earns its density. Borough Market at 9am, the Tate Modern at 3pm, a pub in Clerkenwell that's been there since 1720. London works because you can walk between centuries in twenty minutes.
Two hours south to a town that figured out how to be more than Monticello. The Corner for college-town energy, the Downtown Mall for dinner that matters, and enough vineyards within 20 minutes that you can pick the one where nobody's wearing a sash.
Forty minutes from DC to a colonial port town that still works as a port. Stay at the Naval Academy hotel where the midshipmen's parents stay, eat rockfish at a restaurant older than the republic, walk the brick streets to the harbor and back before checkout.
Colonial Williamsburg is still there, and it's still good — better, actually, when you're the one choosing to go. Stay at the Williamsburg Inn, where the lobby fireplace has been lit since 1937. Walk Duke of Gloucester Street at 8am before the interpreters clock in. This is the version of Williamsburg your teacher couldn't afford.
