A 5-day Washington, DC plan for families (kids ~6 & 9)

Kids around 6 and 9 are exactly the right age for "real spaceship, right there": the 1903 Wright Flyer, a renovated planetarium and a piece of the Moon they are allowed to touch. The museum has been through a multi-year renovation, so check which galleries are open on your date, reserve free timed-entry passes in advance, and look at the IMAX schedule if you want one big-ticket extra.

It is free and open-air, and kids can roam between giant sculptures like the Typewriter Eraser and cool their toes at the fountain’s edge.

Animals are the universal kid win, and because the zoo is free you can leave the minute energy drops, guilt-free. Reserve free timed-entry passes ahead. The zoo is built on a hill, so go in at the top and let gravity carry you down.

If it’s pouring or brutally hot, the indoor animal houses (Great Apes, the Small Mammal House and the Reptile Discovery Center) keep the day going under cover.

The David H. Koch Hall of Fossils — Deep Time has a real T. rex posed over a Triceratops and a woolly mammoth, and the hands-on Fossil Basecamp lets kids touch real specimens. Add the giant African elephant in the rotunda, the Ocean Hall and the live Insect Zoo. Entry is free, and a timed pass typically isn’t required.

Unlike the Smithsonians it is ticketed, and it is closed Tuesdays.

The Mall runs about two miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, so skip most of it and aim for the western cluster: the Lincoln Memorial (climb the steps or take the elevator from the basement, where the restrooms are), the Vietnam and Korean War Veterans Memorials, and the Washington Monument at a distance. Then take a Tidal Basin pedal boat for close-up views of the Jefferson Memorial. Boats hold four, suit ages 2 and up, and run spring through fall.

It is free and air-conditioned, and its kid-friendly galleries plus the Sculpture Garden make a gentle afternoon.

The Wharf strings a mile of Potomac waterfront with public piers, giant swings on the Recreation Pier, the 7th Street Park lawn and a seasonal splash pad by the Boathouse. Snack through the Municipal Fish Market, America’s oldest continuously operating open-air fish market. From spring through fall, the free Wharf Jitney crosses the channel to East Potomac Park at Hains Point, where a big fenced playground and open grass wait.

Georgetown Waterfront Park is the other riverfront option: an interactive plaza fountain kids splash in (on from mid-spring through fall), grassy lawns and the C&O Canal path nearby.