Two Smithsonian Museums Private Tour: American & Natural History
Description
Explore two of the famed Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC's National Mall, the fascinating National Museum of American History, and the Museum of Natural History, one of the greatest collections in the world in three hours on this private and informative walking tour.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Begin with a private tour of the National Museum of American History, where your guide will give you an overview of American history, before exploring the exhibitions in more depth. - See several artefacts underpinning the American political and cultural landscape. - Explore exhibitions that focus on America’s triumphs, tragedies, wars, and protests. - Learn about American women's history, African American history, Latin American history, and any area you have particular interests in.
Enjoy a short break before heading to your next destination, the Museum of Natural History, one of the world’s largest collections of the natural world. - Explore the museum’s highlights, including the Hope Diamond donated by Harry Winston, a T-Rex fossil, and a short film depicting the history of mammals over 200 million years. - Immerse yourself in earth’s many ecosystems, including the Sant Ocean Hall, where you can see some of the smallest and largest animals in the oceans.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Wheelchair accessible
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
Reviews(56)
Kate was a great tour guide. She was so knowledgable and made each presentation interesting with lots of data and information and even small recreations of the costumes of that time period . all of the family found her very interesting
Very informative, thorough and well articulated. I would highly recommend for anyone interested in having a well guided private tour.
John Grant was the best tour guide we’ve ever had - he was thoughtful, super knowledgeable and was very dedicated to us having a great experience!
Jalesa was very informative and took us to the best highlights of both museums. Took the time to find out about our interests and made sure to include touring those.
I loved our guide, Stephen! It was formative and he was very knowledgeable. He kept a hood pace and provided lots of information we wouldn’t have known walking around solo.
Good day, thank you for your A plus rating! what a complement. We will be sure to pass on the lovely words to Stephen. We are delighted to know that Stephen's knowledge and guiding pace added to your lovely day. It sounds like you had an exceptional experience and that is what we aim for in all our tours that we deliver. We hope to have the honour of welcoming you back on another tour soon. Warmest regards.
I hired a private tour for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Museum of American History, hoping to enrich the visit with my youngest daughter, learning beyond what is already available to the general public. However, the experience was deeply disappointing. The guide assigned, Paul Rose, was unfortunately not in a position — physically or intellectually — to provide the service we had hoped for. Beyond joining us on the tour, he provided no additional information or relevant historical context. On several occasions he simply repeated what already appeared in the vignettes of the museum, at other times asking us to sit down while we toured its institutions. It should be remembered that both museums are free and have detailed signage. That is precisely why we hired a guide: to have a personalized and educational experience. Instead, we felt that we had only paid to have a silent companion, with no added value. Viator should more rigorously review the adequacy of its guides, especially when it comes to services geared towards families with children, who seek to learn and connect more meaningfully with content. Unfortunately, this tour did not meet any of our expectations.
Estimado Julio, lamentamos sinceramente que su experiencia en los museos Smithsonian no haya estado a la altura de sus expectativas. Entendemos lo importante que es que un tour privado—especialmente uno reservado con el objetivo de enriquecer la visita de un acompañante menor—sea una experiencia atractiva, informativa y memorable. Si bien nuestro guía llevó a cabo el recorrido de manera profesional e hizo todo lo posible por brindar una experiencia positiva, reconocemos que una lesión preexistente en la pierna pudo haber afectado la calidad y energía general del tour. Esto pudo haber contribuido a su impresión de que la visita careció de la profundidad y el valor esperados. En Travel Curious estamos comprometidos con ofrecer experiencias excepcionales y tomamos muy en serio todos los comentarios. Dado que el servicio no cumplió con sus expectativas, hemos emitido un reembolso del 25% como gesto de buena voluntad. Esperamos tener la oportunidad de darle la bienvenida nuevamente en el futuro y brindarle el alto nivel de servicio por el que somos reconocidos. Atentamente, Equipo de Travel Curious
We chose this tour as we were crunched for time and thought that a guide would be able to help us hit the highlights. Our guide was an older gentleman who was full of knowledge. However upon arrival he asked us what we wanted to see- we had not done much research before. He was good in taking us to things he thought we important. I would suggest you know what you want to see ahead of time. Of course it was a whirlwind and we could have had more time, but for the price it was decent. We would have been lost and wasting time if we had meandered around on our own.
Dear Brynna, Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts on your recent tour with us. We genuinely appreciate your feedback and are pleased to hear that you found our guide knowledgeable and helpful. We understand that your time constraints could have been challenging, however our guide worked around your time-sensitive constraints and was flexible. We strive to ensure that our tours offer a meaningful and efficient experience. It seems that there was a bit of a mismatch between your expectations and the tour’s approach, as the guide asked for your preferences to have an understanding of what you might prefer to see rather than providing a pre-defined itinerary. He went above and beyond in giving you a tour that went through important highlights, this was not part of the Smithsonian Museums: American & Natural History Private Tour. The tour you booked takes you to The National Museum of American History and Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History tour. It is great to see that our guide understood your needs and adapted your tour to what you wanted even with your time constraints. We are happy you found the tour valuable and that it helped you navigate the highlights without wasting time. We hope that you can book our highlights tour in future as it showcases the highlights of the city which you might enjoy. Thank you once again for your feedback and for choosing our tour. If you have any further questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly on customerexperience@travelcurious.com
Very busy hard to hear.. suggest maybe headphones and microphone to communicate . Other wise AWSOME place to visit.. First time in Washington
Hi Tasla, this has been posted on our private tour listing and not the museum. We kindly ask you to please remove the review and post it in the corresponding listing. Thank you.
We had an excellent time! Our guide Stephen was funny, witty, engaging, and full of interesting anecdotes and facts. Highly recommend! Would have a seen and learned a third of what we did without our guide
Steven is highly knowledgeable and gave us memorable tours of the highlights of both the Museum of American History and the Museum of Natural History -- thank you!
