GRISWOLDDAD
Parenting, Entertainment, and Travel Tips
Things to Do in Virginia
*For a list of Virginia's top yearly events, click here.
Charlottesville
Charlottesville has been home to two of our earliest presidents. Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, was a plantation hosue designed by Jefferson himself and is where he lived while maintaining his vast tobacco and, later, wheat fields (using slave labor...) The US' 3rd president and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson is truly a part of the foundation of the US. The house, gardens, and out-buildings, like slave quarters can be toured.
Ash-Lawn Highland was the much more modest home of 5th president, James Monroe, who purchased the land to be neighbors with his friend, Thomas Jefferson. There's a yellow, 2-story addition that was added to Monroe's home in the mid 1800's by a later owner, but the original Monroe parts of the house, all in white, were built in the late 1790's and moved into by the Monroe family at the turn of the century.
Monticello
Richmond
The Museum of the Confederacy has the largest Confederate artifact and manuscript collection and has the Confederacy's White House, which can be toured. Maymont is a Victorian mansion, built in 1893. The mansion, along with its 100 acre grounds, carriage houses, and gardens can all be toured. Edgar Allan Poe lived in Richmond, so the city has an Edgar Allan Poe Museum dedicated to the author.
Maymont Mansion
Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley area is filled with beauty, leaves in the fall, scenic drives, waterfalls, and other natural wonders. Shenandoah National Park lets you see all of this, hike (including parts of Virginia's section of the Appalachian Trail), ski, picnic, climb, camp, and any other outdoor fun you can think of. Skyline Drive, a 105 mile long scenic drive, cuts through the park, always staying on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains as you go.
The Natural Bridge is one of the oldest tourist attractions in America and is often included in the "7 Natural Wonders of the World" lists. When you go there, go beyond the bridge to find the Monacan Indian living history exhibit.
Luray Caverns are the largest caves in eastern US and filled with countless stalactites, stalagmites, and other rock formations.
Virginia Beach
Virginia Beach has 3 miles of boardwalk and lots of beach and ocean fun and call themselves a "kid friendly beach town." Plus they have the Cape Henry Lighthouses (old and new...ish), the Virginia Aquarium, and plenty of museums, like the Old Coast Guard Station Museum, the Military Aviation Museum, the Throroughgood House (colonist home built around 1719), the Lynnhaven House (another colonist home built in 1725), and the Ferry Plantation House (plantation built in 1830).
Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is America's largest outdoor living history museum and represents colonial living in the Virginia colony just before and during the American Revolution. As a visitor to the town, you get to see interpretive reenactments of what the city would have been like in the midst of the Revolution.
Busch Gardens is a theme park just outside of Williamsburg and is filled with MANY rides, shows, animal encounters, and pure family fun!
