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So guests can social-distance, the Homestead is booking half its rooms.
Photograph of pool courtesy of Homestead.
Resorts can be very big places, with hundreds of travelers from all over not necessarily ideal in the time of Covid.
Yet avoiding people at resorts may be easier than you’d think these days. Properties are not only limiting the number of guests at Virginia’s
Omni Homestead, they’re booking about half the rooms but also limiting how many people are allowed at one time into facilities such as fitness centers. At Virginia’s
Wintergreen, pool capacity at press time was capped at 75 percent. At
4 Hotels and Resorts Within Driving Distance of DC That Have Opened or Revamped Since Covid Began
Quirk of Fate
Quirk Charlottesville’s timing could not have been worse: The hotel opened in March 2020. The 80-room hotel, blocks from the town’s lively pedestrian mall, features art and even headboards by local artists, plus a rooftop bar with mountain views.
Distance from DC: 116 miles.
Naval Architecture
Two Naval Academy graduates are behind 134 Prince, an elegantly refurbished boutique hotel in Annapolis’s historic district. The 1849 building houses five guest suites, with luxe bathrooms and custom furnishings.
Distance from DC: 35 miles.
Bay Views in Virginia Beach
10 Ideas for Getaways That Get You Out on the Water Around Washington, DC
Boats, tubing, lakes, and waterfronts.
Adjacent to a federal refuge for bald eagles,
Mason Neck State Park in Lorton offers beautiful vistas and chances to spot not only those majestic birds but al-so swans, turtles, and other wildlife, from a rented canoe or kayak. See dcr.virginia.gov.
Distance from DC: 27 miles.
Take a Sunset Sail
Woodwind and
Woodwind II in Annapolis are replicas of wooden schooners built in the early 1900s. Relax while cruising across Annapolis Harbor and looking back at the city as the sun sets over the capitol dome. See schoonerwoodwind.com.
Sandy Point State Park
On this mile-long beach near Annapolis, you can gaze out onto the Chesapeake and smugly watch traffic crawl on the Bay Bridge heading to and from the ocean. See dnr.maryland.gov.
Distance from DC: 40 miles.
Flag Ponds Nature Park
Prehistoric sharks’ teeth and other fossils await on the beach at Flag Ponds.
This Southern Maryland beach is nirvana for fossil hunters, who comb the sand and surf for prehistoric sharks’ teeth. Go to calvertparks.org/fpp.html.
Distance from DC: 53 miles.
Gunpowder Falls State Park
The park’s Hammer-man Area has a 1,500-foot-long beach along the wide Gunpowder River. The park can reach capacity on weekends and holidays. See dnr.maryland.gov.
Going to the Goats Think goats are adorbs? At the Goat Loft, a pastoral-chic apartment on a 13-acre farm in Round Hill, Virginia near Harpers Ferry and