If you are planning on attending the inauguration from out of town, start your planning now.  In fact, start planning two weeks ago, because most, if not all of the 95,000 area hotel rooms are already booked.  And expect to look hard for alternatives.  An estimated million and a half people are currently expected to attend what may be one of the largest events, and the largest inauguration, on the Mall National in Washington DC’s history.

The last inauguration, in 2005, drew 300,000 for President Bush’s second inauguration. President Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration drew the largest inauguration crowd, around 1 million people watched the ceremony at the Capital. 

After checking over 450 area hotels, none were accepting online reservations.  Some hotels were already sold out, others had multi-day (4 or 5 nights) stays required, while others required calls directly to the hotel.  A travel representative mentioned area hotels, normally in the under $200 range, had increased hotel room prices to double or more for the inauguration. 

I also checked for available hotel rooms in the Baltimore area and found nothing available.  But I did find a few rooms available in Richmond, Virginia, about 100 miles from Washington, DC. some rooms were still under $125 and even a Days Inn offered a room for just $60.  But I suspect these rates will soon jump as well.

Here’s ten ways to try to find an alternative place to stay for the inauguration:

1. Call around to hotels not generally frequented by tourists, such as conference centers in in the suburbs.
2. Check out temporary housing on home, condo and time share vacation rentals sites, but beware, prices for inauguration week have skyrocketed.
3. Look for ads in the Washington Post and Examiner.com housing section (print and online) for short term rentals for inauguration week.
4. Check Craigslist (temporary housing section) in Washington, DC and the surrounding suburbs for people renting homes or rooms during inauguration week.  I found several hundred ads, ranging from someone’s basement bedroom in the suburbs, to a beautifully furnished 3-bedroom high-rise condo just blocks from the National Mall for $12,000 for the week. Make sure to look for convenient Metro access and parking.
5. Check DC Message Boards for rooms available for the inauguration.
6. Rent a motor home for a few days. If none are available in DC, look in the surrounding areas and drive it to DC for the inauguration.
7. Search out that long lost school friend who lives in Washington, DC on Classmates.com
8. Get on the phone and search out some of the smaller suburban motels, that may not have websites.
9. Find friends who are going to the inauguration and try to crash with them, on the sofa, a roll-away, or on the floor.
10. Make an offer to stay in The DC Traveler’s guest room…all bids will be entertained. Plus, an Inauguration Continental Breakfast is included!!

You can still request inauguration tickets, but it’s probably too late to make the cut. Visit your Congressional Representative’s website at http://www.house.gov/.

Image – Wikipedia – public domain
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Post from: The DC Traveler