The entire city of Washington DC is a landmark, with historic buildings, houses, streets, cafes, monuments, statues and memorials in nearly every single neighborhood. You can find most of the memorials at the National Mall: the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the MLK Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial, as well as the iconic reflecting pool and the Washington Monument. Nearby is one of the District’s most beloved landmarks: the cherry blossom trees, which originated as gifts from Japan. There’s also the free-to-the-public Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Supreme Court, and of course, the White House.

Art & Culture

Orchestra, opera, ballet, theater, and museums are all part of this arts epicenter. DC is home to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, the Washington Ballet and the historic Ford’s Theatre (site of the Lincoln assassination, which continues to host performances to this day). There are also great music venues like the 9:30 Club, Black Cat and local bands that pop up in independent art galleries and charity functions alike.

Nightlife

DC is a hard-working city, but people here certainly know how to have a good time too. Happy hour is big here. Whether you’re networking or catching up with your regular group of friends, virtually every bar has a happy hour special and they’re all packed. There are rooftop cocktail lounges and underground dance clubs. There are gay bars, drag shows, drag bingo, and the annual high-heel race. There is live music at the Verizon Center, Wolf Trap, Blues Alley, Gypsy Sally’s, U Street Music Hall, and Jiffy Lube Live, just to name a few. Plus, you can BYOB and catch jazz bands at Jazz in the Garden in the middle of the sculpture garden, local bands at the Fort Reno Concert Series, and movies at Screen on the Green.

Outdoors

Nearly 20% of D.C. is made up of parkland, totaling 7,464 acres. There are hundreds of athletic fields and playgrounds, 40 public swimming pools, a 9-mile-long botanical garden, and miles of inner-city forests. Most neighborhoods are centered around a circle or park of some kind, and to top it all off, you can rent a kayak, canoe, or paddleboard and venture down the Potomac River.

Although D.C. has less than 700,000 residents, more than one million people commute into the city each day for work. The last place you’ll probably want to be during rush hour is in a car.

Luckily, the District has an excellent public transportation system, over 60 miles of scenic bike paths and nice, wide sidewalks to handle all the pedestrian traffic. The Washington Metro runs over 117 miles of track and 90 stations in the D.C. area, moving nearly half a million people per day. Metrobus can connect to you to any of these stations, so you’ll have no problem getting where you need to go.

Washington is home to the Wizards (NBA), Capitals (NHL), D.C. United (MLS), the Nationals (MLB) and the Redskins (NFL). The Verizon Center hosts Washington basketball and hockey games, National Park is where you go catch DC’s championship-winning soccer team, and the Redskins play at the FedEx Field in nearby Landover, Maryland. With so many out of towners in DC, it’s also really easy to find a bar rooting for your hometown team, whatever it may be.

For the most part, Washington DC enjoys pretty mild weather, but any local will tell you it’s the humidity that can do you in, especially if you’re wearing the stereotypical DC professional uniform of a full business suit. With a daily average around 80 degrees in July, there are plenty of warm days to enjoy the summer sun. Occasional heat waves combine with high humidity for mid-summer swelters, often topped off with a nice thunderstorm to cool things down again. Winter temperatures average about 38 degrees from December to February, usually with a light snow and the occasional nor'easter “snowmageddon.”

DC is home to the headquarters for many international organizations, trade unions, nonprofits, law firms, lobbying groups, banks and businesses. There are hundreds of foreign embassies, as well as international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Pan American Health Organization, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Outside of government, the District is an education epicenter, with universities, public policy think tanks and scientific research. The top five non-government-related employers include Georgetown University, George Washington University, Washington Hospital Center, Children’s National Medical Center and Howard University. The DC area also has one of the biggest media markets in the nation, with media companies and cable channels like C-SPAN, BET, Radio One, National Geographic Channel, Smithsonian Networks, NPR, Voice of America, Travel Channel (in nearby Maryland), Discovery Channel (also in Maryland) and PBS (headquartered in Arlington, Virginia). It’s also still very much a city of mom-and-pop shops and restaurants, with local institutions that have outlived many of the city’s more transient residents.