For a city of such modest size – just under 600,000 inhabitants occupying 69 square miles – Washington is the hub of a surprisingly large hinterland reaching deep into the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia. The Metro system reaches the nearby Virginia suburbs of Arlington (great nightlife and restaurants) and Alexandria (Civil War-era history and George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation) as well as Maryland’s Bethesda (perhaps the region’s best dining). Within a few hours’ radius the landscape gets even more varied – from the beaches of Maryland’s Eastern Shore to the east to the singular urban charms of Baltimore to the North to mountains and Civil War battlefields to the west in Virginia.

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