Lonely Planet Kids City Trails - Washington DC

This was a Christmas gift for my grandson.

We had another book on New York of these series and wanted to get this book for my daughter who is 9 years old. Along with her I found the language of this book interesting and entertaining. Have already visited couple of places mentioned in it.

Gave this to my 6th grade daughter. She LOVES it!

wonderful way to learn without knowing it.

City Trails is not a guided walking tour (like the Freedom Trail here in Boston) of the Metro DC area. No addresses or street names are noted in the blurbs. To actually visit any of these places, you’ll have to consult a real map. For instance, the chapter “Statue City” highlights notable statuary around town. But the Capitol Building statues (in SE DC) are far from the Cathedral ones (in NW DC.) The themed groupings (G-G-G-Ghosts, Animals Around Town, Water World and more) are less maps to any place and more of an interesting overview of our Nation’s amazingly diverse and action-packed city. It’s best read as a primer on experiencing the flavor of the city (I lived and worked there.) It reads more along the lines of the “Weird But True” series made famous by National Geographic for Kids.I don’t see this being of value to tourists in town for a limited time whose sightseeing is going to include major attractions like government buildings (White House, Capitol), museums (Smithsonian), some monuments (Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington) and other popular sites (Ford’s Theater.) This guide is actually best suited for the Metro-area (WDC, MD and VA) resident – child or adult - who wants a deeper dive into their hometown’s off-the-beaten-path sights and stories. A well designed and written book of historical trivia.

I got this for my kids to read before we went to Washington D.C. The pages are colorful, illustrated, and have short bursts of interesting details about the various attractions available to tourists who are visiting. My kids were eager to find the places on our itinerary and read about them ahead of time. They learned what to expect and were sure not to miss the important aspects of our tours. This book is recommended for 9 to 12 year olds and I think that is the perfect range. There is just enough information to peak their interest and not so much that they get bored by reading a bunch of text. The Table of Contents wasn't that informative in finding specific places, but the index was. My kids preferred to leaf through the whole book and find what was interesting to them.

We live in the DC area so we were familiar with most of these things, but this would be a great book for tourists with kids! It gives you little tips that the locals know but that you wouldn't necessarily get from other guidebooks.I found the food sections particularly interesting as I don't always know where to eat in DC. I usually use Yelp, but it's nice to have some classic DC establishments to visit.It would have been very nice if this had been written more like a walking tour of different areas, but I still really enjoyed the content and think it will be very helpful for those visiting our fine city.

As a transplant to Washington, D.C. I find this a great book for kids of all ages to dig into and give great ideas of things that might interest them while in town. It's a coffee table book in our house so that whenever visitors come by they have a good place to start on their/our travels. Book isn't perfect. As an adult, I wouldn't use this book as a travel guide. It is filled with fun facts and great themes, but lacks details such as addresses and how close attractions are to one another. I struggled with giving this a 3 or a 4 review. Came to my conclusion based on the sheer amount of great info the book provides to give it a 4. Hope this helps.

Leuk voor iemand die naar Washington verhuist.