So you’ll skip the Nation’s Capital?
If you go to Alexandria you can visit Fort Ward, which was one of the defensive forts around D.C. during the Civil War.
As for DC, don't miss the National Archives to see the Declaration and the Constitution (and much more) ... while they're still in effect. A visit to historic Annapolis and the US Naval Academy is worthwhile as well. But don't miss out on G&M! Cheers!
Other battlefields:
The Wilderness Campaign (especially if you read Shaara’s novels ahead of the visit, ditto for Gettysburg)
Manassas
Fredricksburg
Give the USMC Museum a try. Plan on at least a whole day.
Restaurant: The Fish Market in Old Town Alexandria
If you’re going to be driving in Maryland be careful to not exceed posted speed limits. If you are CWP holder Md has no reciprocity with your home state. Concealed carry is prohibited unless you have a permit from Md itself. No loaded readily accessible handguns may be carried in any vehicle. Keep all radar detectors out of your vehicle. If you get pulled over and they see one you will get a ticket.
They are very expensive. Make sure your car rental docs are in complete order. Md is NOT visitor-friendly.
Stay out of Salamander’s driveway.
Back in 1976, our family toured some things back there. The Petersburg VA National battlefield was interesting to me, as a civil war site (as an 8th grader). The other sights we saw were Revolutionary.
I took the same trip in September 2010.
In this order I went to:
Gettysburg
Antietam
Harpers Ferry
Monocacy
Manassas
Fredericksburg
Mount Vernon
I drove out to the Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and Wilderness battlefield while in Fredericksburg, not much to see there.
Best way to avoid crime is stay away from cities. Get a truck and travel trailer, and stay at nice campgrounds.
However, if you are going a bit further south, In Bedford, VA there is the National D-Day Museum, and my wife and I have been there a few times. (Perhaps best known for the impact DDay had on the town, where nineteen soldiers from that town with a population of about 3000 were killed in one day.)
Still in Bedford, but up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, there is a horse ranch, Reba Farm Inn and I have been there several times...loved it. Not your run of the mill ranch where you can go to ride horses.
Heh, if horse riding isn't interesting to you, don't bother reading the rest...:) Just me telling about it.
I am not an overly experienced horse rider, but I can ride, and it doesn't intimidate me. Unfortunately, until I went to Reba Farm for the first time, most of the riding I have done in my life has been the "follow the horse in front of you" variety, not all that exciting. But it was different there.
The guy who runs it with his wife is a real-life "horse whisperer". I am not kidding. Their specialty it taking in troubled horses and horses with behavioral problems.
He rescues them.
When he gets them, the first thing he does is remove their horse shoes. When you go out to the giant quonset hut where the horses are prepared to go on rides, there is a pile of rusting horseshoes about four feet high. None of his horses have any shoes.
He doesn't segregate his horses into groups, he just lets them all live together, stallions, mares, and geldings in a huge herd. He says it is how they live in nature, so he lets them. (He did have his prize stallion segregated in a small paddock one day as I reference below, but that was really the only time I saw it in several visits)
As he was explaining this to me, his prize stallion was in the field with all the horses, and was acting up, trying to engage a huge work horse stallion who completely ignored the high-strung stallion. It was comical, and Ron grinned as he pointed this out to me and said "Look at that big lug of a horse...the other one is trying to pick a fight with him, but he couldn't care less!"
He talks to all of his horses in plain English, and I swear, they understand him. (All these names below are made up since I can't remember them) I was watching them take out a bunch of horses one day for a group ride. He went to the pasture holding all the horses, opened the gate and yelled "Betsy! Come on." and a horse peeled off, ran over about fifty yards and right through the partially opened gate, and without any guidance, ran up the hill into the quonset hut and right up to a bucket of oats to eat and wait for a saddle.
He called "Jim! Come on." and another horse ran over and up the hill into the "stable" to get set up for a ride.
He called out "Strawberry! Come on!" and two horses ran over and both went through the gate. He yelled after one of them "Daisy! Come back...you aren't going out!" and without hesitation, the horse stopped, turned around and walked back through the still open gate unprompted!
I thought this was amazing-I know some horses are smart, but this guy seemed to have a way with them. When we went inside to saddle the horses, they were all standing where he had placed the buckets of oats and he just walked to each one and clipped their harness to an eye-bolt on the wall.
As we were saddling the horses, I heard this ruckus coming from outside somewhere, a horse whinnying loudly and making various horse noises. I was puzzled by this, and didn't know what was going on, but Ron didn't even seem to notice it. I said to Ron something like "It sounds like that horse is in trouble or something" and he stopped, went outside and I could see a small one horse paddock about 100 yards away with his prize stallion in it, and the horse was going mental, rearing up, just making a scene. Ron yelled "COWBOY! YOU AREN'T GOING OUT FOR A RIDE TODAY!" and the horse huffed and stamped its front hooves into the ground...hilariously, like a little kid being told he couldn't play with a toy!
Ron just said "He sees us getting set, and he wants to go with me on the ride."
I loved it. I had never seen horses in this light before, and I looked at them in a completely different way!
Are you a retired or disabled vet? You could maybe stay at Ft. Belivor outside of DC in VA.
I think retired get to use the BOQ??
Visited Gettysburg (oh, maybe 30+ years ago or so). Spent a couple of days. What struck me is how ALL of the monuments are ONLY for the north. It is almost like the north was battling a phantom. It’s only when you go south into North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia... that you find any monuments for the southern soldiers. Of course, by now, I’m sure that has been erased by antifa/blm/colleges, fed gov... If you are looking for history, all you are going to find is “propaganda”
Potomac Point Winery is an award winning winery and has great food. It is down by Quantico so you can go visit the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Since you will be coming out of Baltimore and visiting Gettysburg, I suggest you consider making a big loop of the trip:
1. Antietam, over to
2. Gettysburg, south through the Cumberland Gap to
3. Harpers Ferry, south into
4. The Shenandoah Valley (North to South) (various battle sites) exit the southern end of valley to visit
5. Appomattox (a bit out of the way)then head
6. North up VA 28/29 to Culpepper and head east on VA 3 for Wilderness Battlefield, Chancellorsville, and Fredericksburg. Then pick up
7. I-95 North to go back to Baltimore with possible side trips to Manassas and DC.
As you probably know, all these locations have visitor centers (some large, some small) and plenty of restaurants and hotel/motels for all budgets.
Since you mention having visited DC in the past, I will only say you need to study the various websites for the individual places you want to visit. There are a lot of museum openings and closings due to renovations and a number of changes to operating schedules, etc.
You also need to study the transportation system(s) you want to use to get into the National Mall from wherever you are parking and, once you get there, how you intend to get around the Mall to the various museums/memorials/etc. that you want to visit.
All government buildings seem to require masking up regardless of vaccination status and there is a lot more security in DC these days.
If your main interest is airplanes, you might consider, as an alternative to DC, a trip out to Dulles to visit the Udvar-Haazy (sp) Annex to the National Air and Space Museum (NASM). Easily accessible off of VA 28 North near Dulles International, plenty of parking ($12.00/car last time I visited), and a great museum experience. There are also plenty of hotels and restaurants just offsite as well.
I’m an aviation enthusiast and have visited it a number of times. If I didn’t live so far away, I’d volunteer out there. I love how the spaciousness of the Annex permits full display of a number of unique and very large aircraft with plenty of room so you can see most of them from all angles.
Hope you find some of this useful. Have a great trip.
We just moved to Williamsburg. It’s a bit far afield of your base but the historic district is nice and Jamestown and Yorktown are nearby. Saucy’s in Hopewell and Petersburg has great BBQ.
I second Williamsburg. Love that place.
You might want to consider a few ghost tours in some of the cities your going to. They give you a glimpse of history of the life of the poor and middle class way back then.
I know this is out of your territorial range, but Monticello is worth exploring in Charlottesville. It's fascinating, actually if you have not been. Stopping to see The Lawn at UVA is worth seeing, too - the part of the campus that Jefferson designed as well as the rotunda. However, don't venture into Charlottesville if there is a Saturday UVA football game. The town is completely overrun and gridlocked. You may want to see Monticello before the SJWs force them to burn it down.
A bit further south and west is Appomattox. It was much more interesting than I was expecting. The area is preserved to look as it did when Lee surrendered.
You may want to consider driving down Skyline Drive in Shenandoah Natl Park. It starts in Front Royal, VA and ends at Afton Mountain at I-64. Charlottesville is about 30 mins to the east. It takes about 3 or 4 hours to drive the 90 or so miles. While the Blue Ridge Mountains don't compare to the Rockies, the elevation is about 3,200 feet or so in the north and a bit lower on the south end. There are some great views of the Shenandoah Valley and Appalachian Mountains to the west. If they're not rented out, there are some great cabins at Big Meadows Lodge on the Skyline Drive. They are nice and if it's cool, they will give you wood for your fireplace at night. There is a restaurant on site serving all 3 meals with a pub downstairs. Once at the southern end of Skyline Drive, you can retreat back north, by taking I-64 west to I-81 and drive right up the middle of the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester - about 100 miles. You'll drive past Staunton where Woodrow Wilson was born and half way up 81 is New Market - about a mile from 81 - where hundreds of VMI cadets fought at the battle of New Market and some were killed. There is not much to see at the battlefield, but I found it interesting. The South won and later, the North burned down VMI in retaliation. I've been to Winchester a number of times, but it doesn't really do much for me - but there is quite a bit of Civil War history in town. Also, it's apple season and there's plenty of apple orchards from Charlottesville and all up and down the valley. These orchards have all kinds of odd varieties, including black apples, which is apple equality, I guess.
Back to Harpers Ferry - just outside of town, is where Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia meet. If it's your thing, there is an easy hike called Maryland Heights - there's an easy, quick trail and a longer, slightly harder trail - they end at the same spot - but at the top, you will be in Maryland with a beautiful view of Harpers Ferry from across the river with Virginia on the other side of the river. The Appalachian Trail goes right through Harpers Ferry and is the halfway point. You won't see any through hikers in September, but there are plenty of day/weekend hikers. You can walk across an old railroad bridge, which is part of the trail, and on the other side of the river is the C&O Canal towpath, I'm sure you remember it originates in Georgetown and goes as far west as Ohio - but not certain. There are scores and scores of wineries all over the place. The most well known is Barboursville Vineyards just north of Charlottesville - they have a very expensive restaurant - and some of its wines can be expensive, too. I've been dragged to various vineyards and I still don't know a thing about wine. I wouldn't know a good one from a bad one. Barboursville is where one of the presidents was born, but I can't remember who it is.
Someone mentioned the Smithsonian museum at Dulles airport and I agree, it's absolutely spectacular and I'm not much of a museum person, unfortunate when living in the DC suburbs. If you have the time, do it. It costs $20 to park and it has a true Imax screen - 60 feet tall. Good luck and have fun!
https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/veterans-and-gold-star-families-free-access.htm
Keep in mind (everyone) that veterans have free access to national parks/battlefields/forests. If you are going somewhere with an admission fee, show proof that you are a veteran, including the “veteran” designation on your driver’s license.