We spent two days roaming around Washington D.C. during the shutdown.

If you’re stumbling upon this blog for the first time, welcome! I have a lot of regular readers that I know about and cherish from the bottom of my heart, but for those who are just stopping by for the first time: my name is Ashley. I work on this blog as a little outlet from my job and life as a writer, which is awesome, but I used to work professionally as a film critic and wanted a space to keep going with that practice.

I tend to write about lifestyle, movies, books, and television. Today’s blog post is in the travel category, as the theme of fall 2025 for me has been self-care and learning how to adjust to my new job. One of the first things I did though with my first paycheck was book a hotel in Washington, as this is one of my favorite cities in the world.

I grew up outside of Washington, in the suburbs of Baltimore, and many of my fondest childhood memories come from going down to Washington and visiting the monuments or the Smithsonian. I even interned at the Smithsonian when I was a graduate student because I love the Institute and how it is a place that, if you can get to DC, is free access. I think the Smithsonian is deeply flawed, like many museums, but free museums and education in this country is deeply needed.

Anyways, I booked this hotel in September 2025, a month before the government shutdown began. I had no idea that the shutdown would be still happening when I was in Washington, so instead of hitting up the Smithsonian museums I mustered up a plan involving some other spaces I’ve been wanting to visit.

We stayed at the National Mall Hyatt Place, which was the first time I stayed at a Hyatt. My mother and I really liked it a lot. It was quiet, the room was nice, and the breakfast was fairly decent.We both agreed we would stay there again.

Let’s get into what we did! Real quick though: I want to acknowledge how it’s such a privilege being able to travel and visit DC when so many federal workers are struggling right now, as well as eat a nice meal when SNAP benefits are disappearing. I don’t take it for granted.

National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Old Korean Legation Museum are some hidden gems in Washington.

From Baltimore Penn Station, we grabbed the 11 AM MARC train. It takes about an hour to get into Union Station, but for $9 one way you can’t really beat that affordability. I used to take the Amtrak into Washington but now it’s too expensive—it used to be $6 one way and now it’s more like $30 on the weekends.

When we got to Union Station we headed to the Chopt in there, which is our little ritual, and split a Santa Fe wrap. That wrap is so good—the last time we got it in 2023 we both remembered loving it so much it was our automatic decision to eat here when we arrived into town.

From there we hopped onto the Red Line and got off at the stop closest to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which is my favorite museum I’ve ever been to. It’s the only women’s art museum in the world, and I’ve been debating getting a membership because I liked their curation so much.

This time they had an exhibition of Dutch and Belgian women artists during the golden age of Dutch painting and art. I’m used to seeing the Ruysch and Peeter paintings being the only representation of women artists during this period, so it was fascinating to learn about these other artists. Those who did the textiles, and were most likely lower class, are lost to history.

Their permanent collection is also fairly interesting to look at. My favorite Faith Ringgold piece is located at NMWa, so I was happy to see it before we rested our feet on a couch. I had a reservation for the Old Korean Legation Museum at 3 PM, so we walked eighteen minutes north and gawked at how pretty the fall foliage was.

The Old Korean Legation was the site of the former Joseon embassy in the 1900s, but when the Japanese annexed Korea they sold it for $5—mere pennies for what they bought it for. In 2012 the Korean government and community rallied to buy it back, and it’s now a free museum.

You could spend about an hour here max, as it’s pretty small, but it was really interesting to see and learn about this history. I had a good time, and my mother enjoyed the furnishings. From there, we walked to the Howard University subway station and went downtown to our hotel.

Dia de Muertos at the Wharf and dinner at Ilili were a perfect combo.

After we had the chance to rest our legs for a bit in our hotel room and I charged my phone, we headed back out to walk ten minutes down to the Wharf. I knew my mother would like it, but little did we know that there was a Dia de Muertos festival going on that day. Everyone was dressed up, dancing, and there was beer and wine. There was also a face painting station if you wanted to get your face painted.

We didn’t do any of that, but we walked down the length of the Wharf to see the full scope of what was going on. There was quite a bit of live music and performances going on along the water, so we stopped for twenty minutes to watch a band perform Mexican folk and contemporary songs in a biergarten. That was a lot of fun.

I had a reservation for the Lebanese restaurant Ilili for 6 PM. Ilili had been on my spots to check out for a while, as I knew the New York City location, and I heard that the DC location was full of gorgeous decor.

Good thing I got a reservation on a Saturday night because the place was packed. There were very few open tables throughout the restaurant, and when we left at 7 PM it was getting even more crowded. We ended up getting the mixed grill platter, with the lamb racks subbed out for chicken, with a side fattoush.

That was such a delicious meal with the pita they provided. The meat was perfectly marinated and grilled, and the sides they gave to dip it in were perfect. I enjoyed the toum a lot specifically! The salad was also the perfect balance for the heavier meat; I was glad we didn’t get rice because of the salad being perfect.

After this we walked back to the hotel, as the Wharf was getting even more crowded, and I showered and finished my book before heading to bed.

Washington D.C. is a city where you truly can just walk around and find adventure.

We woke up bright and early the next morning because of Daylight Savings Time. We sat in bed for a bit reading and going on our phones before getting breakfast at the hotel buffet, then we decided to walk back to the Wharf for a bit because it was so chaotic the night before.

That proved to be quite the move because of how peaceful it was. There were geese floating on the Potomac, old people taking their grandkids for a walk, and K-pop fans camping out in front of The Anthem because Riize was performing there that night. We enjoyed our hour long walk along the water before heading back to the hotel.

Then we grabbed our backpacks and decided to walk to Eastern Market. I chose the scenic route along the National Mall and the Capital, and we were happy to see how the fall foliage framed the classical architecture so perfectly. We really got our steps in this morning, and my mother might’ve been dying, but I had a lot of fun on this walk.

We ended up in Capital Hill, as the Eastern Market was our destination for the day.

Eastern Market is full of hidden gems and artisans.

Eastern Market was somewhere I wanted to check out because I heard the farmer’s market was pretty cool. And I mean it when I say it was pretty cool—there were quite a few items I wanted to buy there, but didn’t have space for.

I had no idea this happened before, even though we had stayed in Capital Hill one time during our little staycations to Washington. We started out in the food section of the outdoor market, where we got some freshly made donuts, sat and ate them, and then ventured deeper into the artisan stalls.

We also popped into the indoor section of the market to see what the butcher had to offer, but there was no way we could take that home. I spotted a Peruvian mirror seller and my god I want one of those mirrors. They were all just so beautiful in a way that struck me emotionally.

We walked around until we hit the subway station, then we got on and headed to Union Station. Our train was at 12:40 PM, so we had enough time for me to buy a shirt at UNIQLO to replace one of my other black shirts, then we grabbed some cinnamon buns over at the Cinnabon before heading back to Baltimore.

It was a nice little trip and I’m so glad we went! I’m already looking at hotels for our next trip into town.

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