From the Back Cover
Spend Less and See More in Washington, D.C.If you'd like to get the most out of your dollar and your trip, this is the guide for you. I put a fresh spin on budget travel, showing you how to see the best for less and how to see it in a more authentic way—the way locals do.
Instead of spending $300 a night for a faceless chain hotel, why not spend $95 for a night at a cozy B&B with fireplace and private garden, or rent your own apartment and pretend you're a Washingtonian for just $125 a night?
Or how about enjoying an Ethiopian feast, complete with a dance show (for about $7 per person), or a burger and a beer at the pub where Jack wooed Jackie?
Let me show you the "other" Washington—the one only insiders know about. Learn some of the fundamentals of being a spy, or visit some of DC's less well-known world-class museums. These are only a couple of the great ways to get closer to the culture of Washington. Read on for more!
About the Author
Jim Yenckel was a writer and editor for the
Washington Post for 33 years. For 16 years, he was
The Post’s chief travel reporter, writing a weekly advice column distributed over the
Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service wire. Subsequently, he has appeared in
Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine,
Newsweek, Preservation, Washingtonian Magazine, and
NARFE, a magazine for federal employees. He also has written for the
Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Denver Post, Hartford Courant, and other newspapers. He currently writes a weekly travel column for the
Washington Examiner and the
Baltimore Examiner, and he can be heard monthly on WAMU-FM, a National Public Radio outlet in Washington. He received the Traveler’s Advocate Award of the American Society of Travel Agents and a Silver Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. His guidebook to the Mid-Atlantic Region earned him the Travel Writer of the Year Award from the State of Maryland. Born in Omaha, he attended school in Nebraska and California. He is a graduate in Spanish American history from the University of California at Berkeley, where he served a term as editorin-chief of the
Daily Californian, the student newspaper. After college, he received a fellowship from the Inter-American Press Association for a year’s study at the University of Chile in Santiago. While in Santiago, he served as managing editor of the
South Pacific Mail, a weekly English-language newspaper. He has traveled in more than 80 countries and all 50 states. After an assignment as
The Post’s night foreign editor, he obtained a year’s leave of absence in 1972 and backpacked solo around the world mostly by bus and train, visiting 30 countries in Europe and Asia. Earlier in his career, he circled the United States on a 99-day/$99 Greyhound Bus pass. His most recent adventure, to celebrate the conclusion of this guide, was to hike the rigorous 21-mile rim-to-rim trail in Grand Canyon National Park. He lives in Washington with his wife Sandy, who is also an avid traveler.
