Whether you are a student group traveling for educational purposes or an adult group traveling for leisure, consider including a local licensed guide in your trips budget. The knowledge that a guide can offer to the group while riding on a motor coach or walking along touring is invaluable and can be so interesting.

Photos of famous hot spots are in magazines, on postcards and in the movies so while it is satisfying to see them on location with your own eyes it is the little known facts that can make a trip educational and entertaining. When I was in Washington DC, our guide pointed out to us the Watergate Hotel and showed us the place where our President, Ronald Reagan was shot in an assassination attempt. I remember where I was that day and it triggered the memory of when President John F. Kennedy was shot. I remember that day too. Had the tour guide not pointed us in the direction of the Watergate Hotel, my group never would have known, we would have thought it was just another building. I also recall the Watergate Hotel as being connected with the downfall of President Richard Nixon. Naturally, a history lesson can occur suddenly and knowledge can be imparted to students that show cause and effect and consequences for actions.

If your group is touring Washington DC on your own, how would they know they can add their own personal touch to an ever-growing gum tree across from Ford's Theater, outside the Petersen House (where Lincoln died). No one knows how long people (who aren't allowed to chew gum inside the building) have been decorating this tree, but your group will want to help build it.

If your adult group was touring on your own, who would take you to the Temperance Fountain? In 1882 a local DC dentist designed and commissioned this fountain in a belief that easy access to cool drinking water would keep people from consuming alcoholic beverages. Later on in history, for the longest time, the fountain (dry, without water) sat in front of a liquor store. Only a local tour guide could share the irony of the fountain with you on your trip.

If your group has any movie fans in them at all you will want a tour guide to take you to all the places movies have been filmed. Movies such as A Few Good Men, An American President, Forrest Gump, Contact, Wag the Dog, and Thirteen Days all filmed in Washington, DC. Everyone in my office knows I am a Tom Cruise fan and not for the reasons you think. He reminds me of my eldest son, well mostly thats why Im a fan.

If you watched Wag the Dog with Robert DiNiro, dont be discouraged, it was not a documentary.

Imagine yourself standing in the foot prints of Michael Douglas in An American President or more importantly imagine yourself standing in the footprints of the forty-three American Presidents who have served our country. Thats just part of what Washington D.C. has to offer. Where ever and when ever you travel, be sure to do this one thing, enjoy your trip.

Vickie Dodson