Frequently Asked Questions

Visit our calendar page to sign up for scheduled walking tours from mid-February through November. If you don’t see the tour you want on the date you’re free, please get in touch​, and we can schedule a private tour!

Tickets for our public tours cost $35 per adult and $20 per child. Private family tours (up to six people) cost $250. The cost for larger private tours depends on our itinerary and group size, so please get in touch for more information. Driving tours depends upon the size of the vehicle we’ll need. Please visit our driving tours page for pricing information.

Our public tours are limited to a maximum of 20 people. Private small group tours that can be booked via our calendar page are limited to 12 people or fewer. We can accommodate larger groups, so please get in touch if you’d like to schedule a tour for a bigger crowd!

Private bookings can be arranged for any of our tours, or customized to suit you! Private tours of 1 to 12 people can be booked directly via our calendar. We also offer walking, driving, and virtual tours for larger groups. We can even build full or half-day itineraries for you visit. Please get in touch via our website or email [email protected] for more information. Private tours run year round.

We partner with a chauffeur service to provide driving tours of Washington DC. Many of our walking tours can also be conducted by car, or we can build a custom driving itinerary for your visit. Please get in touch or email [email protected] for more information.

Our virtual tours can be done two different ways, either as an on-site walk or in “presentation style”. During an on-site virtual tour, your guide is physically at the tour location,  bringing you along the walking tour route with them. In a presentation-style tour, your guide will show you current pictures, historical photos, videos, diagrams and lots of background information not available on an in-person tour. All of our virtual tours are live and interactive, never recorded or canned! Please get in touch to schedule your virtual tour.

Sturdy walking shoes, bottled water, and rain gear are recommended for any outdoor activity. Please note that there are not always bathroom facilities available, so prepare in advance.

All of our weekly walking tours are about two hours long and cover one to two miles of walking. Please have a look at our online calendar to see what time and where your tour begins. You’ll also receive a confirmation email with the time and meeting information. Look for your guide in the black and white DC Design Tours t-shirt!

Our tours generally run rain or shine, unless weather conditions are dangerous. On the rare occasion a tour is cancelled, you”ll be notified by email, phone, and text, and receive a full refund.

All of our tours are wheelchair/stroller accessible, except for the 16th St & Adams Morgan tour, which includes a set of stairs. Georgetown can also be challenging due to the narrow sidewalks and uneven pavers of this Colonial-era neighborhood. Please let us know in advance if you have any concerns, and we’ll be happy to make recommendations.

Parking can be challenging in Washington DC, so we highly encourage using public transportation. However, there are many parking garages and some street parking in DC neighborhoods. Feel free to get in touch for more specific information on each tour, and check out this helpful guide about parking in DC.

There are public bathrooms on our two National Mall tours and Capitol Hill tour, but you never know the condition they’ll be in!  All our other routes are entirely outdoors, so options are limited. Please prepare in advance, and your guide will be happy to point you in the direction of restrooms at the end of your tour.