Best Things to Do in Virginia (2026 Guide)

The Governor’s Palace in Colonial Williamsburg served as the official residence and administrative center for the royal governors of Virginia from its completion in 1722 until the Revolution, after which it briefly housed the first two governors of the Commonwealth before burning in 1781. The current structure is a meticulous reconstruction completed in 1934, built on the original foundations using eighteenth-century construction records, archaeology, and a detailed floor plan drawn by Thomas Jefferson.

Interpreters in period dress lead tours through rooms furnished to reflect the 1770s occupancy of the final royal governor, Lord Dunmore, whose relationship with Virginia’s colonial leadership deteriorated rapidly in the years before independence. The palace’s formal rooms reflect the deliberate projection of British imperial authority — the entrance hall lined with muskets and swords, the elaborately furnished dining and ballroom spaces — while the working areas of the house reveal the large enslaved labor force that maintained the estate. The reconstructed gardens behind the palace extend across several acres with geometric planting beds and a canal.

The palace is one of Colonial Williamsburg’s most visited structures and ticketed separately from the general historic area admission. Advance booking is recommended during summer months and holiday periods. Timed entry limits crowd concentration within the house, and the gardens are generally quieter than the interior tour queues.

Within the broader Colonial Williamsburg experience, the Governor’s Palace provides the most direct encounter with the mechanisms of colonial power — the architecture, furnishings, and staffing of royal authority at the moment it was about to unravel. It functions as both a house museum and an argument about how the empire presented itself on its American frontier.

The USS Wisconsin, an Iowa-class battleship commissioned in 1944, is moored along the downtown Norfolk waterfront at Nauticus, the city’s maritime science museum. At 887 feet long and with a displacement exceeding 45,000 tons, the Wisconsin is one of the largest battleships ever built by the United States Navy, and it retains the physical presence and mechanical complexity of a vessel designed to project force across oceanic distances.

Admission to Nauticus includes access to the Wisconsin’s main deck, where visitors walk through the flight deck, past the sixteen-inch gun turrets, and along gun galleries with interpretive panels covering the ship’s service across World War II, the Korean War, and the Gulf War. The gun turrets, each weighing approximately 1,500 tons and capable of firing projectiles over twenty miles, are the ship’s most arresting physical feature. Guided tours and a self-guided audio tour cover the accessible portions of the ship, while specialty tours offer access to additional spaces including the bridge and below-deck compartments on select days.

The Wisconsin is best visited with time to absorb the scale, which takes longer than most visitors initially expect. The outdoor deck exposure means summer visits can be uncomfortable during midday; morning departures and autumn visits offer more pleasant conditions. The Hampton Roads Naval Museum, located inside the Nauticus building, extends the maritime history context with exhibits on the region’s deep naval history and models and artifacts spanning the Civil War through the modern era.

Norfolk’s identity is inseparable from naval history — the city is home to the world’s largest naval station — and the Wisconsin provides civilian visitors with the most direct, tactile encounter with that history available anywhere in the region. The ship’s sheer physicality makes it memorable in a way that exhibits alone rarely achieve.

Nauticus at 1 Waterside Drive in Norfolk, Virginia, is a maritime science center and museum anchored literally and figuratively by the battleship Wisconsin, one of the largest and most powerful warships ever built for the United States Navy. The museum sits directly on the Elizabeth River waterfront and draws on Norfolk’s deep identity as a major naval port to deliver exhibits that connect science, technology, and military history.

The Wisconsin, decommissioned in 1991 after service in World War II, Korea, and the Gulf War, is moored alongside the museum and open for self-guided tours of the main deck, giving visitors a direct sense of the ship’s scale and engineering. Inside Nauticus, interactive exhibits cover topics including naval engineering, marine biology, and port commerce. The Hampton Roads Naval Museum, operated by the Navy and located within the Nauticus building, adds depth on the region’s long maritime heritage.

Nauticus is open year-round and makes an effective destination in any season, though summer draws the largest crowds, particularly families and school groups. The waterfront location is pleasant in spring and autumn, and the adjacent Harbor Park and Waterside District offer additional options for dining and leisure within an easy walk. Weekend programming frequently includes demonstrations and special events tied to naval history or marine science themes.

The museum sits at the western edge of downtown Norfolk, within walking distance of the NEON arts district and a short drive from the heart of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. For visitors with an interest in naval heritage or maritime industry, Nauticus provides a substantial and accessible entry point, with the Wisconsin alone representing an encounter with a scale of engineering that few land-based experiences can replicate.

Keswick Vineyards at 1575 Keswick Winery Drive in Keswick, Virginia, produces estate wines in the rolling countryside east of Charlottesville, occupying a property that combines working viticulture with a tasting room experience set against the Blue Ridge foothills. The winery has developed a focused wine program built around the grape varieties best suited to Virginia’s Piedmont climate, with Viognier and Cabernet Franc among the estate’s consistent performers alongside blended styles and seasonal releases.

The tasting room reflects the agricultural character of the property, offering views across the vineyard and a relaxed setting that encourages visitors to linger. The winemaking team takes an intentional approach to the estate’s particular terroir, and the tasting experience is designed to communicate that specificity, what grows well on this land, why, and how the wines reflect the vintage conditions of any given year. Group visits and private events are accommodated, and the estate’s event calendar includes seasonal releases and winemaker dinners.

Spring through autumn represents the primary visiting window, with the harvest season from late August through October being particularly evocative for those interested in the production side of the winery’s operation. Weekday visits allow more relaxed access and more time with the tasting room team. The property is open most days of the year, though confirming hours before visiting is advisable, particularly during the winter months or around major holidays.

Keswick Vineyards sits within the Monticello American Viticultural Area, a designated wine region that encompasses most of the Charlottesville wine country. The property’s position east of the city places it somewhat apart from the more heavily trafficked wineries along the Thomas Jefferson Parkway, giving Keswick a quieter character that suits visitors who prefer a less crowded tasting experience without sacrificing the quality and seriousness that define the better Virginia estates.

Gadsby’s Tavern Museum at 134 North Royal Street in Alexandria, Virginia, preserves two of the finest examples of Georgian commercial architecture in the country. The tavern complex, comprising a 1785 tavern and a 1792 City Hotel, once served as a gathering place for the colonial and early American elite, hosting figures including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison during their travels through the region.

Inside the museum, restored rooms recreate the atmosphere of 18th-century tavern life with period furnishings, tableware, and interpretive exhibits. The ballroom on the upper floor is particularly notable, having hosted lavish assemblies and dancing celebrations that were central to Alexandria’s social calendar. The ice well in the basement, an engineering curiosity of its time, illustrates the practical ingenuity built into the original structure.

The museum is open throughout the year, with spring and autumn generally offering comfortable temperatures for exploring Old Town Alexandria on foot before or after a visit. Summer brings higher visitor numbers, particularly from families interested in the colonial history that saturates this neighborhood. Some evenings feature living history programming and period-style dining events that animate the tavern’s original hospitality function.

Gadsby’s Tavern sits at the heart of Old Town Alexandria, just steps from the waterfront and a dense cluster of historic buildings, galleries, and independent restaurants. The site serves as an anchor for understanding Alexandria’s role in early American commerce and civic life, complementing nearby attractions such as the Carlyle House and the Alexandria History Museum at the Ramsey House.

The Rising Sun Tavern at 1304 Caroline Street in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is a late 18th-century tavern that once served as a social hub for the colonial Virginia gentry. Built around 1760 by Charles Washington, a younger brother of George Washington, the building operated as a tavern from approximately 1792 until 1827, when it transitioned through various uses before being preserved as a museum in the 20th century.

Costumed interpreters guide visitors through the tavern’s rooms, bringing to life the culture of colonial hospitality with accounts of the travelers, merchants, and political figures who passed through Fredericksburg on the post road between Richmond and the northern colonies. The barroom, card room, and sleeping quarters are furnished with period pieces that illustrate the range of services the tavern once provided, from food and drink to lodging and news exchange in an era before reliable communication infrastructure.

The tavern is open for tours most of the year, with spring and autumn offering the most comfortable conditions for exploring Fredericksburg’s historic district on foot. Summer sees higher visitor numbers, particularly from school groups and families, while winter months are quieter and well-suited for travelers who prefer a more relaxed pace. The tavern pairs naturally with other nearby museums on Caroline Street, including the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop, for a half-day immersion in colonial Fredericksburg.

Fredericksburg occupies a strategically important position midway between Washington and Richmond and has preserved an exceptionally intact historic downtown. The Rising Sun Tavern sits within this broader heritage corridor and contributes a lively, human-scale counterpoint to the more monumental sites in the area, making it a particularly effective stop for visitors interested in the social history of early America.

Michie Tavern is a living history museum and restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia, operating in an eighteenth-century tavern complex that was relocated from its original site near Earlysville and reassembled on its current parcel along the road leading to Monticello. The property preserves several original structures including the tavern building, a gristmill, a smokehouse, and outbuildings that together convey the working life of a colonial-era roadside establishment.

The tavern’s central attraction is the Ordinary, a colonial-style buffet restaurant serving midday meals in a setting of period furnishings, bare wood tables, and costumed staff. The menu centers on dishes associated with eighteenth-century Virginia cooking — black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, cornbread, fried chicken, and similar preparations — served buffet style in the tavern’s dining rooms. The experience leans deliberately toward historical atmosphere rather than culinary innovation, and it functions best understood as a themed experience integral to the site’s interpretive mission.

Michie Tavern operates as a stop on the Thomas Jefferson heritage trail that connects Monticello, Ash Lawn-Highland, and the Charlottesville historic district. Its position immediately below Monticello on the Jefferson Parkway makes it a convenient lunch stop in a day that begins with the early morning tour of Jefferson’s house and continues into Charlottesville for the afternoon. The museum shop carries a selection of colonial reproduction items, local products, and tavern-related literature.

For visitors to Charlottesville who want a fuller sense of how colonial Virginia’s commercial and social infrastructure operated alongside its planter-class estates, Michie Tavern fills a specific gap — the working roadside stop rather than the gentleman’s residence, a perspective on colonial life that Monticello’s grandeur alone does not provide.

Mulberry Row at Monticello, located along Thomas Jefferson Parkway in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the industrial and domestic core of Jefferson’s plantation. The Row was a roughly 1,000-foot-long work corridor where dozens of enslaved people lived and labored in a variety of skilled trades, from nailmaking and woodworking to spinning and weaving. Contemporary interpretation of Mulberry Row has become central to how Monticello presents Jefferson’s legacy, moving beyond the architectural and political to engage directly with the human cost of the plantation system.

Reconstructed archaeological features and interpretive signage along the Row identify the former locations of cabins, workshops, and storage buildings. The Monticello visitor experience has invested significantly in documenting and naming the enslaved individuals who worked here, drawing on historical records to give identity and specificity to people who were long absent from the official narrative. Walking tours focused specifically on the lives of enslaved workers at Monticello are available and complement the traditional house tour.

Mulberry Row is accessible during standard Monticello visiting hours, which extend throughout the year with seasonal variation. Autumn and spring offer particularly comfortable conditions for the outdoor sections of the site. The dedicated slavery tours tend to draw visitors with a particular interest in this interpretive focus, while families attending for Jefferson’s house and gardens may encounter Mulberry Row as part of a broader circuit of the grounds.

Monticello as a whole has undertaken one of the more thorough revisions of a major American heritage site in recent decades, and Mulberry Row represents a significant part of that effort. Visitors who spend time here leave with a more complex and historically grounded picture of Jefferson and the society he inhabited than the architecture and political biography alone can provide.

The University of Virginia in Charlottesville was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of neoclassical architecture in the United States. Jefferson designed the Academical Village around a central Lawn flanked by two rows of pavilions, gardens, and student rooms connected by a continuous colonnade. The Rotunda anchors the north end, modeled on Rome’s Pantheon at half scale. The entire original campus was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

The pavilions along the Lawn were designed to reflect different orders of classical architecture, functioning as both teaching tools and faculty residences. Student rooms along the Lawn remain occupied today, and their inhabitants are selected through a competitive process that maintains Jefferson’s original vision of students living within the architectural and intellectual framework he designed. The Academical Village functions simultaneously as an active academic space and a historical monument, an unusual dual identity it has maintained for over two centuries.

The Grounds, as the university refers to its campus, are open to visitors year-round, and free guided tours of the Rotunda and Academical Village are available most days. Spring and autumn are particularly rewarding for walking the Lawn and adjacent gardens, which are at their most photogenic during those seasons. Graduation ceremonies in May bring high visitor numbers and limited parking, and planning around that period is advisable.

The university’s proximity to Monticello and the Charlottesville wine country makes it a natural component of an extended visit to the Virginia Piedmont. For visitors with an interest in American architecture, Jefferson’s educational philosophy, or the origins of the state university system, the Grounds offer a depth of historical and architectural engagement that rewards careful exploration rather than a quick pass through the Rotunda.

Champion Brewing Company at 324 6th Street SE in Charlottesville, Virginia, operates from a converted brick building in the Belmont neighborhood and has established itself as a fixture in the city’s craft beer scene since opening in 2012. The brewery takes its name from the cycling legacy of founder Hunter Smith’s family and maintains a production facility alongside an accessible taproom that draws both locals and visitors exploring Charlottesville’s food and drink culture.

The taproom offers a rotating selection of Champion’s beers on draft, anchored by flagship styles alongside seasonal and experimental releases. The space retains the industrial character of its former life while incorporating comfortable seating and a bar setup that encourages extended stays. The brewery has expanded its distribution across Virginia and maintains a presence at events throughout the state, but the taproom experience at the Belmont location provides the most direct access to the full range of current releases and the people who make them.

Champion is open most days of the week, with evening hours on weekdays drawing a mix of after-work regulars and visitors. Weekend afternoons are the busiest, particularly during warmer months when the outdoor seating area becomes a draw. Charlottesville’s combination of university population, tourism traffic, and a strong local food culture sustains a year-round taproom environment that rarely feels empty but is generally manageable outside of major events.

Belmont is one of Charlottesville’s most walkable neighborhoods, with independent restaurants and cafes that complement a visit to Champion. The brewery is a short drive or rideshare from the University of Virginia grounds and the downtown pedestrian mall, fitting naturally into an afternoon or evening itinerary that favors locally operated establishments with genuine character over regional chains.

The Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, occupies a complex of four buildings in the historic Shockoe Bottom neighborhood, including the Old Stone House — believed to be the oldest surviving structure in the city, dating to approximately 1737. Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, but Richmond was where he spent much of his formative life, worked as a writer and editor, and fell in love with the city’s social world, making the museum’s Richmond location a meaningful rather than arbitrary choice.

The collection spans original manuscripts, letters, personal objects, and first editions, with the centerpiece being an intricate scale model of Richmond as it appeared in Poe’s lifetime, constructed in the 1920s by a local craftsman and remarkable for its detail. Exhibits trace Poe’s biography with particular attention to his Richmond years and the literary work produced during them, while displays also address the critical reception of his writing and the transformation of his reputation after death — when French writers including Baudelaire helped elevate Poe from a commercially struggling American editor to an internationally celebrated literary figure.

The museum’s Enchanted Garden courtyard, planted with flowers associated with Poe’s writing and romantic history, provides a pleasant outdoor space between exhibit buildings. Weekend evenings periodically feature candlelit tours, readings, and events oriented toward Poe’s darker literary themes. The museum maintains a scholarly commitment while remaining accessible to visitors who come as general admirers rather than specialists.

Shockoe Bottom’s position near the James River and the city’s historic warehouse district gives the Poe Museum a neighborhood context that feels appropriate to the writer’s atmospheric work. It pairs naturally with Richmond’s other literary and historical sites, though for Poe admirers specifically it stands as the most concentrated resource in the country for studying his life and legacy.

The White House of the Confederacy stands at 1201 East Clay Street in Richmond, Virginia, a preserved antebellum mansion that served as the official residence of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from 1861 to 1865. Now administered by the American Civil War Museum, the house offers an intimate look at how the Confederacy’s wartime leadership lived amid one of the most turbulent chapters in American history.

Inside, visitors encounter meticulously restored period rooms filled with original furnishings, family portraits, and personal artifacts belonging to the Davis family. The parlors, dining room, and private quarters have been preserved with careful attention to the mansion’s wartime appearance. Guided tours illuminate the political decisions made within these walls and the domestic life that continued even as the war raged outside Richmond’s boundaries.

The site is open year-round, though spring and autumn offer pleasant conditions for visiting the surrounding historic neighborhood on East Clay Street. Weekday mornings tend to be quieter, providing more relaxed access to the interpretive exhibits and guided commentary. The museum often coordinates programming with nearby Civil War sites, making it an efficient stop for anyone exploring Richmond’s extensive heritage corridors.

Located adjacent to the Museum of the Confederacy, the property sits within a broader network of historic sites that define Richmond’s role as a center of Confederate governance. Visitors gain perspective not only on the Confederate leadership but also on the enslaved workers who maintained the household throughout the war, a dimension of the site’s story that receives increasing interpretive attention in contemporary museum programming.

Woodlawn and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House at 9000 Richmond Highway in Alexandria, Virginia, present two distinct chapters of American architectural history on a single shared property managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The juxtaposition is unusual and instructive: Woodlawn is a Federal-style mansion with roots in the early 19th century, while the Pope-Leighey House is a Wright-designed Usonian home from 1940, representing his vision of affordable, organically designed housing for middle-class Americans.

Woodlawn was completed around 1805 on land that George Washington bequeathed to his nephew Lawrence Lewis and Lewis’s wife Nelly Custis, Washington’s step-granddaughter. The house reflects the aspirations and social rituals of Virginia’s planter class in the early republic. The Pope-Leighey House, constructed in cypress, brick, and glass, demonstrates Wright’s characteristic horizontal lines, built-in furniture, and integration with the landscape. Guided tours of both structures draw on distinctive interpretive approaches suited to each building’s era and design philosophy.

The property is open seasonally, with spring and autumn being particularly rewarding for the combination of architectural tours and the surrounding grounds. Special events, including design-focused programs and seasonal celebrations, are scheduled throughout the year. Visitors with specific interest in Wright’s work should confirm the touring schedule in advance, as access to the Pope-Leighey House may vary by season.

The property’s location along Richmond Highway places it within a broader corridor of Northern Virginia heritage sites, including Gunston Hall and George Washington’s Mount Vernon, that together offer a substantial survey of early American plantation-era architecture. The addition of the Wright house gives Woodlawn a conceptual reach that extends well into the 20th century, making the combined site genuinely unlike any other in the region.

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, serves as the primary storage and display facility for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s full-size aircraft and spacecraft collection. Where the Mall museum in Washington concentrates on milestone objects and curated narratives, the Udvar-Hazy Center operates at a different scale — two massive hangar-like pavilions housing more than three hundred aircraft and spacecraft displayed in the kind of density that makes the collection’s breadth immediately legible.

The aviation hangar contains aircraft spanning the history of powered flight, from early biplanes and a Concorde to jets from every major era of commercial and military aviation. The space pavilion centers on the Space Shuttle Discovery, the most flown orbiter in the shuttle program’s history, now displayed at floor level where visitors can walk beneath its heat shield tiles and examine its engine bells at close range. The collection extends through Apollo-era spacecraft, satellites, and test vehicles that cover the full span of the American space program.

The center is located near Washington Dulles International Airport, with shuttle service connecting it to the Dulles main terminal. The site can absorb a full day for thorough visitors; families and aviation enthusiasts typically move more quickly through the space pavilion and slowly through the aircraft hangar, or vice versa. An observation tower offers views of aircraft landing and departing Dulles, adding a living aviation dimension to the historical collection.

Admission to the center is free, as with all Smithsonian institutions, though parking carries a fee. For any traveler with a serious interest in aviation or space history, the Udvar-Hazy Center is unmatched in the scope and condition of its collection — a place where the machinery of the twentieth century’s defining technological ambitions can be seen at full scale and at close quarters.

Carytown is a roughly one-mile commercial strip along West Cary Street in Richmond, Virginia, running through the Carytown neighborhood west of the Fan District. It functions as one of the city’s most active independent retail corridors — a dense concentration of locally owned shops, restaurants, and specialty stores that have shaped the neighborhood’s identity over decades without the wholesale redevelopment that has altered comparable areas in other mid-Atlantic cities.

The commercial strip is anchored by the Byrd Theatre, a restored 1928 movie palace that still operates as a single-screen cinema showing second-run films and classic titles at prices well below the multiplex norm. Surrounding it, the businesses run to vintage clothing, independent bookshops, record stores, specialty food markets, and a range of restaurants from counter-service spots to established dinner destinations. The density of independent businesses within a compact walkable distance makes it genuinely distinct from strip-mall commercial development elsewhere in the Richmond metro area.

Carytown is at its most active on weekend afternoons, when street parking fills early and the sidewalks become social. The Carytown Watermelon Festival in August draws large crowds and temporarily closes the street to traffic. The neighborhood is walkable from the Fan District and the Museum District, where the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture anchor a cluster of cultural institutions that complement a shopping or dining stop in Carytown.

For travelers who find Richmond’s civil war monuments and history-focused attractions familiar territory, Carytown offers a different register — the texture of a functioning urban neighborhood with a local commercial ecosystem that reflects Richmond’s contemporary character rather than its historical weight.