The Memorials by Night

The National Park Service gives free walking tours almost every night of the year around the memorials. The tours are informal, but the guides are great storytellers and leave you with tons of fun factoids about the building and symbolism of the memorials. For example, what the four symbols are on the Vietnam War Memorial, why you only see three of them and when we might add the fourth. Or that the Korean War Memorial has 19 statues that reflect against the black granite wall into 38, representing a very symbolic number in the war. Or that since the Korean War, South Korean has been replenishing the floral wreaths outside the Korean War Memorial… every. two. weeks. Pretty fascinating stuff.
There isn’t too much walking by DC standards; on my tour we stood out front the Lincoln Memorial then walked to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the WWII Memorial. The guides walk slow and chat you up along the way. Our group had folks with motorized scooters and children, and the pace is slow enough so that everyone can keep up. You’re free to come and go as you please, and you can find the group by looking for the National Park Service sign at each of the memorials (see photo).
The guides are very friendly and leave plenty of time for questions as you walk to and from the memorials. Tour is 2 hours well spent.