Tour at a glance
6 Days / 5 Nights
$2,975
Washington rewards students who already know that language shapes power. Your ASL students see the founding documents in their original handwriting at the National Archives, watch those promises argued in the Capitol and the Supreme Court, and stand at the Lincoln Memorial where a movement demanded they be kept. Then comes Gallaudet University, founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and still the world's only liberal arts university built for deaf students. Over lunch with Gallaudet students, classroom ASL becomes conversation. The week shows your students that American history includes the people who had to sign their way into it.
The National Mall: mariordo59 (CC BY-SA 2.0); Lincoln Memorial: Martin Falbisoner (CC BY-SA 3.0); Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: Drewspr00 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Library of Congress: Carol M. Highsmith (Public domain); Smithsonian Castle: Noclip (Public domain); Washington Monument: Diliff (CC BY-SA 2.5); Chapel Hall, Gallaudet University: Supplied for the Harrisburg booking page (Client use)
Students use ASL outside the classroom for a full day: signing with Gallaudet student ambassadors, ordering at Signing Starbucks, and holding lunch conversations with native signers.
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Gallaudet is the only university in the world designed from the ground up for deaf and hard of hearing students, and ASL is the working language of the campus. Students order coffee, ask questions, and make small talk in a place where signing is ordinary rather than accommodated.
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At the National Deaf Life Museum students follow 150 years of Deaf advocacy, education, and cultural identity through artifacts and photographs held by the community itself.
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The museum sits on the Gallaudet campus and tells the story from the inside, including the fight for recognition and rights. Students see how a language community built and defended its own institutions.
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Students walk all three branches in a single day: the Capitol Rotunda, the Supreme Court, and the founding documents at the National Archives, then see the executive branch modeled at The People's House.
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The Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the Archives sit within a few blocks of one another, which makes the structure of the federal government legible on foot. The People's House adds full scale replicas of the Oval Office and the State Dining Room.
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From Mount Vernon's heritage gardens and Slave Memorial to Ford's Theatre and Arlington National Cemetery, students trace the republic from its founding through civil war to the cost of modern service.
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Mount Vernon presents Washington's estate alongside the people he enslaved there. Ford's Theatre preserves the box where Lincoln was shot and the Petersen House across the street where he died the next morning.
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Learning theme/American Memory
The group lands at a Washington area airport. After a welcome dinner, the first stop is the National Mall after dark. Students walk the black granite wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, pass the nineteen steel soldiers of the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and finish beneath a floodlit Lincoln, nineteen feet of marble above them.
Learning theme/Civics and Government
Democracy stops being abstract. Students stand in the Capitol Rotunda beneath a dome rising 180 feet, then see the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights at the National Archives. The Library of Congress holds 170 million items inside the ornate Thomas Jefferson Building, and the Supreme Court sits directly across the street. At The People's House, full scale replicas of the Oval Office and State Dining Room show how the executive branch works.
Learning theme/American Memory
Today is about what service costs. At Arlington National Cemetery students watch the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and stand at the Kennedy gravesite with its eternal flame. The Pentagon Memorial sets 184 illuminated benches for 184 lives. The WWII Memorial's Freedom Wall carries 4,048 gold stars. The day ends with an evening walk through colonial Old Town Alexandria.
Learning theme/United States History
The Smithsonian holds 155 million artifacts across 21 museums and never charges admission. Students stand under the Wright Brothers' 1903 Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum. At the National Museum of African American History and Culture they move from slavery through the Civil Rights Movement to the Obama presidency. The National Museum of American History keeps the original Star Spangled Banner and Lincoln's top hat.
Learning theme/American Sign Language
Gallaudet University, founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1864, is the world's only liberal arts university designed for deaf and hard of hearing students, and ASL is the campus language. Deaf student ambassadors lead the tour of the 99 acre campus, built with DeafSpace architecture that shapes sightlines for visual conversation. At the National Deaf Life Museum students trace 150 years of Deaf advocacy. Then lunch with Gallaudet students, where classroom ASL becomes conversation.
Learning theme/United States History
The last day traces the first president and the one who held the country together. Mount Vernon sits above the Potomac, where the estate, the heritage gardens, and the Slave Memorial tell a fuller story than the house alone. In the city, Ford's Theatre preserves the box where Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865, and the Petersen House across the street where he died the next morning. An evening flight carries the group home.
Lincoln Memorial: Martin Falbisoner (CC BY-SA 3.0); U.S. Capitol: Architect of the Capitol (Public domain); Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: Drewspr00 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Smithsonian Castle: Noclip (Public domain); Chapel Hall, Gallaudet University: Supplied for the Harrisburg booking page (Client use); Washington Monument: Diliff (CC BY-SA 2.5)
Transportation options
Round trip airfare from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and ground transportation provided throughout are included in the program price.
Enrollment opens through the Great Falls Travel booking portal. Monthly payment plans begin after enrollment.
$2,975