Tucked away in Dulles, VA and just off the National Mall in downtown Washington DC, blocks away from the Capitol Building, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center & Air and Space Museum, respectively, make up the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum complex. Once the most visited museum in the United States in 2019, the museum closed for a couple years during the Covid-19 pandemic and has been slowly regaining foot traffic. The large scale planes the museum is known for are located at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, VA a few hundred feet away from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD). The museum campus in downtown Washington is currently undergoing renovations until 2026. We went to the Dulles, VA campus as the museum in Washington is half closed due to these renovations.
When approaching the building you are greeted with facts about the museum, and planes flying overhead, as the museum is just hundreds of feet away from one of Dulles Airport’s many runways. The Udvar-Hazy center is not only a large tourist attraction for the Smithsonian, but also an activity for Washington area families, alike.
Inside the museum, there is wide open space for visitors to traverse, all mainly on the main level. The Smithsonian was able to space out the exhibits and allow for traffic flow in the museum. The Hazy Center features two main rooms, called hangars, the aviation hangar, and the cosmic/space hangar, combining for a whopping 760,000 sq. feet of room. The design allows you to loop around both hangars with plenty of room to take photos or read about the history of the subject. After you loop around, you have the opportunity to watch a film in the IMAX theater on site, showing seasonal, aviation/space, and some new films on site, or go on one of their many simulators, showing you what it is like to go to outer space or fly in a fighter jet. Also on site is an observatory and view tower open, a popular stop for many to see the land, and also DC in the distance. Also on site is a gift shop filled with not only Air and Space merchandise but also other Smithsonian museums and Washington D.C. merch. And for those hungry for a quick bite, famous fast food chain Shake Shack and the Smithsonian partnered to open a location in the Smithsonian, featuring exclusive menu items.
While the museum is popular among families and named a “must visit” by many newspapers, one downside with the Dulles location is its accessibility and size. For many tourists staying in Washington, the trek to Dulles while the main museum is closed, requires a rental car or expensive rideshare ride. This is due to the DC Metrorail not having a station in proximity to the museum. Another downside is the length of time it takes to loop around the museum. While the museum is free, it only allows you to go through the loop (as many times as you want). With the loop only taking around 45 minutes to just over an hour and a half (for those who take a little longer) to complete, many will have to wait in long lines to go on one of the simulators or wait around to see a movie, to justify the 30 minute to hour drive out to Dulles, which for some might not be worth the trek altogether.
