Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning that if you click on one of the links and purchase an item, I may receive a commission at no cost to you. All opinions, however, are my own, and I do not accept payments for reviews.
Keegan is applying to law schools soon! I am unbelievably proud of him and he has been doing a wonderful job of narrowing his school choices. But a big part of his choice revolves around where we will want to live. We know that in order to experience a new place, we want to leave Colorado. So it was time to visit the East Coast. While we were out there we visited a total of 4 schools: 1 in DC, 1 in Virginia, and 2 in North Carolina. This post will be about the portion of the trip that was spent in Washington, DC and I’ll make separate posts for the other states!
Our time in DC had it’s ups and downs and we immediately realized that it is not the place for us. The location of the law school was not ideal and in our opinion the streets were very difficult to drive on, not to mention the lack of parking. But we still made the most of our time there and explored as much as we could! So enjoy this little itinerary of our stay – which is mostly about all of the delicious vegan restaurants we tried!
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH
We left our apartment, exhausted at 4 am, and headed straight for DIA clad in masks (trusty disposable ones and hand sanitizer linked below). We flew United and everything went smoothly. The airport wasn’t very busy at all, so security was a breeze. When we landed and got our rental car we drove to DC from Dulles airport (IAD) in Virginia. Once we arrived our very first stop was a restaurant called NuVegan Café! This place was great; it is cafeteria style where you can order an entrée and two sides. I had a delicious crab cake sandwich and Keegan had a chick’n sandwich. We also enjoyed potato salad, ginger collard greens, garlic kale, and broccoli and cauliflower florets. This was one of our favorites! Not only is their food amazing, but so is their mission statement: “to become the motivating force that sparks a movement towards global awareness by redefining the perception of vegan cuisine.”
- I definitely recommend researching whether or not places offer parking as it is few and far between. After finally figuring out a parking situation for the night and checking into our hotel, it was time for bed!
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10TH
We had breakfast at Fruitive. They offer a wide variety of smoothies and juices. Keegan and I tried the Cacao Pow smoothie which was chocolatey goodness! After roaming around DuPont Circle for a bit we went to HipCityVeg for lunch. There we each got the Crispy HipCity Ranch and some of the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had. I absolutely suggest trying this place; the food and customer service were awesome!
Next, we visited Georgetown Law which is right smack in the middle of downtown and only a short distance from The Capitol, which we of course had to check out. The Capitol was so beautiful and really fun to see, but as we were headed back to the car we actually got caught in a flash flood. Water was almost up to our ankles and we ended up taking cover in a very abandoned Union Station. I am so thankful we had our umbrellas on us (our fave linked below). I just wish we had rain boots on too!
Finally, for dinner we went to Amsterdam Falafelshop. It was delicious and filling Middle-Eastern comfort food. Their falafel was so, so good, and they offer french fries which I had with garlic cream sauce. Mmmm!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH
For breakfast we ate at Fare Well Bakery and it was quite a treat! We had shortbread cookies, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and chocolate cake truffles. In our experience, vegan baked goods that we order from places are often pretty dry, but these were soft and tasty!
After the sweets, we went to the Smithsonian Zoo! We had to make a reservation to get in, as to adhere to proper social distancing, and it was such an easy process. An otherwise very crowded place was actually pretty empty, so it was nice to be able to take our time to see each of the animals. Also one of their giant pandas, Mei Xiang, just had a cub who is now 4 weeks old! SO cute!
For lunch that day we ate takeout from Senbeb Café. We got some chick’n drumsticks and they actually had a wooden piece inside to resemble bone! It was an absolutely hearty meal with great flavor.
Later that day we went to see the monuments! This was by far the best part of the trip! We walked to every single one and reached close to 30,000 steps that day. The history of each monument is so rich and interesting. It was fun to experience all of the beautiful displays. The Thomas Jefferson and FDR monuments were our favorites.
For dinner we had Jamaican food from Sweet Sosumba Vegan Café. We enjoyed the incredible flavor of the jerk chick’n dish. And later that night we got even more HipCityVeg sweet potato fries (because they were just that good) to wrap up that part of our trip!
Have you ever been to DC? What did you think of it? ♡ Feel free to ask me any questions you have in the comments below!
THESE WERE MY TRAVEL MUST HAVES FOR THIS TRIP. PLEASE CLICK THE IMAGES BELOW TO CHECK THEM OUT!
