Gettysburg & Washington DC: American Heritage

Between 46,000-51,000 Americans became casualties of one of the fiercest and most deadly battles of the Civil War. Get a walking tour of the battlefield that became the inspiration for one of the most important speeches in American history, President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Experience how words, along with time, can heal old wounds.

Created on the former estate of the family of Robert E. Lee’s wife Mary Anna Custis Lee (herself a descendent of Martha Washington), the Arlington National Cemetery contains the remains of more than 245,000 persons, mainly comprised of veterans and military casualties from every military incursion—from the American Revolution to the Iraq War. At the cemetery, make sure to visit the Tomb of Unknowns. Comprised of Yule marble quarried in Colorado, the tomb weighs more than 75 tons. And see the eternal flame that marks the grave of President John F. Kennedy.

Night is the perfect time to see the capital, when white marble monuments and silvery pools glow in the floodlights. See the geometric memorials of the Mall—the imposing rectangular Lincoln Memorial, and the line of the Washington Monument bisecting the sky—as well as the innovative and moving monuments to the veterans of the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

George Washington so liked his estate at Mount Vernon that he placed the capital nearby so he didn’t have to move when elected president. Tour his gardens and mansion, where George and Martha lived from 1761 until his death in 1799. Don’t look for any cherry tree stumps in the garden, though—Washington never actually chopped down the tree as a lad. (We hate to ruin the story, but we cannot tell a lie!)

Ford’s Theatre may not be the best place to visit if you’re in government—not only was Lincoln assassinated here in 1865, but 22 War Department clerks were also killed when the floor collapsed in 1893. Tour the infamous theater and see how John Wilkes Booth crept up behind the president’s private box, shot him point blank, and leapt down to the stage below (breaking his leg in the process). Then head across the street to Petersen House, the boarding house where Lincoln was taken after the shooting and where he died. Interestingly, Booth had visited a friend who was staying in that same room the week before the assassination. Note: Ford's Theater is currently undergoing renovations. Performances are available but limited. Please contact us for more information.

Visit the Air & Space Museum and choose between the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the American Indian Museum or the American Art Museum. In a tomb in the Smithsonian Castle lie the remains of John Smithson, an Englishman who left his fortune to the U.S. government in 1829 for the establishment of a museum in his name. (The government was a bit at a loss, given that Smithson had never visited the U.S., had no connections to the U.S., and never told anyone why he was leaving his money to the U.S.) Since then, the Smithsonian Institution has grown into 16 museums, covering everything from art to zoology. See the giant squid and the insect zoo in the National Museum of Natural History, check out the Wright Brothers’ plane in the National Air and Space Museum, or venture with your Tour Director into the further reaches of this world-class institution.

With more than 900 artifacts, 70 video monitors, and four theaters screening historic film footage and eyewitness testimonies, the Holocaust Museum provides a comprehensive -- and moving -- account of the Nazi persecution of Europe's Jewish communities and others during the 1930s and 40s. See newspapers and newsreels from the period, recreations of ghettos and concentration camp barracks, and a room filled shoes stolen from deported Jews that helps make real the sheer number of people killed during this tragedy.