By Plane

Domestic airlines with scheduled flights into all three of Washington, D.C.'s airports, Washington Dulles International (Dulles), Ronald Reagan Washington National (National), and Baltimore-Washington International (BWI), include American (tel. 800/433-7300; www.aa.com), Continental (tel. 800/525-0280; www.continental.com), Delta (tel. 800/221-1212; www.delta.com), Northwest (tel. 800/225-2525; www.nwa.com), United (tel. 800/241-6522; www.united.com), and US Airways (tel. 800/428-4322; www.usairways.com).

Low-fare airlines seem to be most successful and dependable these days. Luckily, quite a few serve all three of Washington's airports. My favorite, because it is so reliable and consistently gets me the cheapest fares, is Southwest Airlines (tel. 800/435-9792; www.southwest.com), which anchors BWI Airport with its roster of 164 daily flights (about half of BWI's passenger business) to more than 35 cities. Other bargain airlines that use BWI are America West (tel. 800/235-9292; www.americawest.com), AirTran (tel. 800/247-8726; www.airtran.com), and Frontier (tel. 800/432-1359; www.frontierairlines.com).

Meanwhile, Dulles Airport is turning into a national hub for discount travel, mostly due to the ever-growing presence of Independence Air (800/359-3594; www.flyi.com), which only just got off the ground in June 2004. As of February 2005, Independence was serving 38 destinations with over 300 daily departures from Dulles, including daily nonstop flights between Dulles and several West Coast cities, from San Diego to Seattle.

Other discount airlines that serve Dulles are United Airlines' subsidiary Ted Airlines (tel. 800/225-5833; www.flyted.com), America West, AirTran, JetBlue (tel. 800/538-2583; www.jetblue.com), and Frontier.

Four discount airlines use National Airport: Frontier, American Trans Air (ATA) (tel. 800/435-9282; www.ata.com), America West, and Spirit (tel. 800/772-7177; www.spiritair.com).

Shuttle Service from New York, Boston & Chicago

Delta and US Airways continue to dominate the lucrative D.C.-East Coast shuttle service. Between the two of them, the airlines operate hourly or almost hourly shuttle service between Boston's Logan Airport and Washington, and New York's La Guardia Airport and Washington. The Delta Shuttle (tel. 800/933-5935) travels daily between New York and Washington, while the US Airways Shuttle (tel. 800/428-4322) operates daily between Boston and Washington and New York and Washington. Both airlines fly into and out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Discount airline Southwest offers nearly hourly service daily between BWI and Chicago's Midway Airport, Providence, Hartford, Long Island, Manchester (New Hampshire), Orlando, and Nashville.

D.C.'s Area Airports

General information follows that should help you determine which airport is your best bet.

Note: At these three airports, as at all American airports now, only ticketed passengers are permitted to go through security to the gates, so you should agree beforehand on some other designated rendezvous site. If you are arriving in Washington from another country, you should tell your friends or relatives to meet you at the International Arrivals gate, the area where all international travelers emerge into the main terminal. That's easy. But for everyone else arriving from some other city in the U.S: Don't have your party wait just outside the security clearance areas to greet you. This section gets pretty crowded, and you may have trouble spotting each other; you may not even be sure that you are both at the same security clearance gates. Your best plan is to arrange to rendezvous at the baggage claim area. Monitors always post the designated baggage claim carousel for each arriving flight, so, for the time being, at least, this zone remains the best spot for reunions -- even if you haven't checked your luggage. Eventually, airports may provide waiting rooms.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport ("National") lies across the Potomac River in Virginia, a few minutes by car, 15 to 20 minutes by Metro from downtown in non-rush-hour traffic. Its proximity to the District and its direct access to the Metro rail system are reasons why you might want to fly into National. National's security procedures add certain precautions not in place at other airports, like the "30-minute rule": Passengers must stay in their seats for the 30 minutes prior to landing at National and for the 30 minutes after their plane takes off from National.

Approximately 14 airlines serve this airport, which has nonstop flights to 69 U.S. cities and three Canadian/Caribbean cities. Nearly all nonstop flights are to and from cities located within 1,250 miles from Washington. The exceptions are flights between National and Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City.

While Washington's two other airports remain in the midst of extensive renovations, National is up-to-date with new terminals, ticket counters that provide access to passengers with disabilities, more than 100 restaurants and shops, commissioned artwork displayed throughout the terminals (go on a tour if your flight's been delayed), and climate-controlled pedestrian bridges that connect the terminal directly to the Metro station, whose Blue and Yellow lines stop here. And it's a good thing that National does offer direct access to the Metro, since the one complaint in the news about the airport lately has noted its dearth of adequate parking spaces. National's airport code is DCA. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority oversees both National and Dulles airports, so the website is the same for the two facilities: www.metwashairports.com. Check there for airport information, or call tel. 703/417-8000. For Metro information, call tel. 202/637-7000.

Washington Dulles International Airport (Dulles) is 26 miles outside the capital, in Chantilly, Virginia, a 35- to 45-minute ride to downtown in non-rush-hour traffic. Of the three airports, Dulles handles more daily flights, with 40 airlines flying nonstop to 108 destinations, including 37 foreign cities. And though the airport is not as convenient to the heart of Washington as National, it's more convenient than BWI, thanks to an uncongested airport access road that travels half the distance toward Washington. A decades-long expansion has so far added new concourses, a parking garage, and a pedestrian walkway between the main terminal and concourses A and B that offers travelers an option over the mobile lounges. Eventually, the airport will more than triple its annual passenger traffic to 55 million, add a runway, and an underground airport train system that will completely replace those inconvenient and unwieldy mobile lounges that transport most travelers to and from the main and midfield terminals. The airport's airport code is IAD, its website is www.metwashairports.com, and its information line is tel. 703/572-2700.

Last but not least is Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI), which is located about 45 minutes from downtown, a few miles outside of Baltimore. This airport is growing in leaps and bounds as more and more travelers turn to it. A vast expansion continues to make it a mess to navigate, but the results thus far include the addition of 11 new gates to a newly improved concourse, skywalks from parking garages to terminals, and triple the amount of parking spaces. One factor especially accounts for this tremendous progress, the same that recommends BWI to travelers: the major presence of Southwest Airlines and its bargain fares. Find out whether Southwest serves your city, if you want to save some money.

Call tel. 800/435-9294 for airport information, or point your browser to www.bwiairport.com. The airport code for BWI is just that: BWI.

Note: By the time you read this, Maryland's legislature may have changed BWI's name to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, or some variation, to honor the first black Supreme Court justice and Baltimore native.

By Car

If you are like most visitors to Washington, you're planning on driving here, traveling on one of the following major highways: I-270, I-95, and I-295 from the north; I-95 and I-395, Route 1, and Route 301 from the south; Route 50/301 and Route 450 from the east; and Route 7, Route 50, I-66, and Route 29/211 from the west.

No matter which road you take, there's a good chance you will have to navigate some portion of the Capital Beltway (I-495 and I-95) to gain entry to D.C. The Beltway girds the city, about 66 miles around, with more than 56 interchanges or exits, and is nearly always congested, but especially during weekday morning and evening rush hours, roughly between 6 to 9:30am and 3 to 7pm. Commuter traffic on the Beltway rivals, maybe surpasses, that of major L.A. freeways, and drivers can get a little crazy, weaving in and out of traffic.

Get yourself a good map before you do anything else. The American Automobile Association (AAA; tel. 800/763-9900 for emergency road service and for connection to the mid-Atlantic office; www.aaa.com) provides its members with maps and detailed Trip-Tiks that give precise directions to a destination, including up-to-date information about areas of construction. AAA also provides towing services should you have car trouble during your trip. If you are driving to a hotel in D.C. or its suburbs, contact the establishment to find out the best route to the hotel's address and other crucial details concerning parking availability and rates.

The District is 240 miles from New York City, 40 miles from Baltimore, 700 miles from Chicago, nearly 500 miles from Boston, and about 630 miles from Atlanta.

By Train

Amtrak (tel. 800/USA-RAIL; www.amtrak.com) offers daily service to Washington from New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles (you change trains in Chicago). Amtrak also travels daily from points south of Washington, including Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, cities in Florida, and to New Orleans.

Metroliner service -- which costs a little more but provides faster transit and roomier, more comfortable seating than regular trains -- is available between New York and Washington, D.C., and points in between. Note: Metroliner fares are substantially reduced on weekends. The most luxurious way to travel is First Class Club Service, available on all Metroliners as well as some other trains. For a hefty additional fee, passengers enjoy more spacious and refined seating in a private car; complimentary meals and beverage service; and Metropolitan Lounges (in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington), where travelers can wait for trains in a comfortable setting while enjoying free snacks and coffee.

Even faster, roomier, and more expensive than Metroliner service are Amtrak's high-speed Acela Express trains. The trains, when they're working, travel as fast as 150 miles per hour and navigate the Northeast Corridor, linking Boston, New York, and Washington. The problem is that Amtrak has been forced to sidetrack the trains each time design and production flaws crop up, something that has occurred with alarming frequency ever since the line was introduced in late 2000. As I write this, in 2005, the entire fleet is grounded indefinitely, after the discovery of cracks in the brakes. Although Amtrak hopes eventually to run a total of 19 Acela round-trips daily between New York and Washington, replacing Metroliner service between those two cities, it may be that the Metroliner stays put and the Acela is phased out.

So if they're running as you read this, Acela Express trains travel between New York and Washington in 2 hours and 50 minutes (about 20 minutes faster than the Metroliner), and between Boston and Washington in about 6 hours and 30 minutes.

Note: As of April 2005, Amtrak implemented a reserved seating policy on its regional trains running between Boston and Newport News, Virginia, which means, simply that every traveler will have a seat -- in the past, during holiday and other busy travel times, passengers would cram themselves into crowded cars on this popular route, standing the whole way, if necessary.

Amtrak trains arrive at historic Union Station, 50 Massachusetts Ave. NE (tel. 202/371-9441; www.unionstationdc.com), a short walk from the Capitol, across the circle from several hotels, and a short cab or Metro ride from downtown. Union Station is a turn-of-the-20th-century beaux arts masterpiece that was magnificently restored in the late 1980s. Offering a three-level marketplace of shops and restaurants, this stunning depot is conveniently located and connects with Metro service. Taxis are almost always available.

Like the airlines, Amtrak offers several discounted fares; although not all are based on advance purchase, you may have more discount options by reserving early. The discount fares can be used only on certain days and hours of the day; be sure to find out exactly what restrictions apply. Tickets for children ages 2 to 15 cost half the price of a regular coach fare when the children are accompanied by a fare-paying adult. For more information, go to www.amtrak.com and click on the website's Hot Deals section, where you'll find assorted discount possibilities, including the "Weekly Specials": I saw savings of 70% to 80% on fares for travel to more than 30 destinations.

Amtrak is in the process of re-assessing its tour packages, formerly another money-saving opportunity for travelers; call Amtrak Vacations at tel. 800/805-9114 after October 2005 to find out whether Amtrak plans to offer this service again.