Guides of DC, Washington

Tammy Belden, the owner and operator of Guides of DC, has lived in DC for more than 40 years, and spent a good amount of that time working on Capitol Hill. She was also the president of the Guild of Professional Tour Guides in Washington, which means she combines her deep knowledge of the area with an aptitude for turning tours into experiences as informative as they are lively and fun. Tammy and her colleagues have curated creative jaunts through DC that spotlight the iconic sites and the stories that surround them. One example is the Monuments by Moonlight tour. This four-hour tour offers a privileged view of sites like the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the U.S. Capitol as seen at night, alit by the moon and spotlights and framed by the evening sky and cityscape. Also of interest is the African American-themed tour, which centers around sites like the Martin Luther King Memorial, African American Civil War Museum, and Frederick Douglass House, as well as eight-hour tours that weave through all the necessary stops—the Smithsonian and Supreme Court, to name a few.