Do You Really Need the Rock-climbing Wall?

Airlines, hotels, and cruise companies--who for decades have turned over a portion of their profits to middlemen shilling their products--are all seeking ways to sell direct to the customer. While eliminating third-party sellers entirely may not be feasible, travel suppliers, including Carnival Cruise Lines, InterContinental Hotels Group (which owns Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza), and Northwest Airlines, are fighting for better terms with the cruise brokers, travel agents, and Internet bookers moving their merchandise. Money is a big part of the struggle, but suppliers are also trying to control how their products are sold, maintain consistency with prices and service, and avoid cheapening their brands. The smartest thing a consumer can do is keep tabs on the industry--in particular, on the conflicts that will determine who's going to give you the best value. Here's the lowdown on a few of the ongoing battles and what they mean to you. InterContinental Hotels vs. Expedia Two years ago, the InterContinental Hotels Group announced a lowest-rate guarantee, promising that customers could always find the cheapest prices for its hotels on its website. Most hotels now have a similar guarantee aimed at steering clients into booking direct rather than via agencies such as Travelocity or Hotels.com. Last May, InterContinental took its corporate clout a step further, stating that third-party agencies could sell its hotel rooms only if they agreed to certain standards. Among the rules, agencies won't be allowed to bundle taxes and fees when displaying prices (forcing them to disclose whatever fees they're imposing), and they can't say a hotel is sold out when only that agency's allocation of rooms is gone. Travelocity agreed to meet the standards, but Expedia and its sister company Hotels.com refused to go along. As a result, InterContinental will pull its rooms from Expedia and Hotels.com, though this may take awhile because of the complexity of contracts. InterContinental isn't the only hotel group getting tough with Internet bookers. Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which owns Sheraton and Westin, has its own set of requirements for third-party distributors, though the terms are secret. The upshot of all this wrangling: Now more than ever, never assume an online agency is displaying all of your hotel options or that its price is the lowest available. To get the best deal, it's necessary to consult two or three online agencies, as well as individual hotel websites and a destination's tourism site. Once you have a hotel in mind, call it up. Rates are almost always negotiable, and hotels prefer to take reservations directly. Carnival and Royal Caribbean vs. cruise brokers Shopping for a cruise has long been kind of a game--some passengers pay close to full price directly to the cruise line far in advance of the sailing, while bargain hunters seek out discount brokers selling the same room for a third of the price at the last minute. One way the brokers are able to offer cheaper prices is by rebating. Basically, it's when brokers agree to give, or rebate, a portion of their commission to the customer. But now Carnival and Royal Caribbean are trying to stop the practice that leaves loads of passengers bitter after finding out they paid a lot more than their neighbor onboard. Carnival took the lead, and beginning January 1, any agency that advertises non-approved rates for its cruises will receive a reduced commission or be banned from selling Carnival cruises. Royal Caribbean, which also owns Celebrity Cruises, followed by more explicitly prohibiting not just advertising but selling either line's cruises for less than the published price. On the one hand, the changes should make shopping for a cruise a lot simpler. Travel agents, brokers, and the cruise line will offer the same price for the same cruise. That price may change from day to day because of availability and other factors, but at least consumers don't have to endure endless shopping marathons. On the other hand, it seems like supercheap cruise deals might disappear. Carnival and Royal Caribbean say that soon the best prices will go to passengers who book early, but we'll have to wait and see. Don't be surprised if a half-full ship that's sailing in three weeks slashes rates across the board. Travel agents and cruise brokers account for about 95 percent of all cruises sold, and many are uneasy regarding the new policies. Why should anyone book through them if their prices are no better than the cruise lines'? Still, most brokers are taking a wait-and-see position. While rebating may be off the table, a good broker will be able to sweeten the deal with transfers or discounted airfare. Upstart airlines vs. legacy carriers vs. travel agents It seemed like the battle between the airlines and travel agents ended three years ago, when most airlines stopped giving agents commissions for selling their tickets. As a result, agents started charging clients to book flights. According to the American Society of Travel Agents, you'll pay on average $27 more for booking through an agent than if you do it yourself at an airline's website. Several of the major carriers are now in or close to bankruptcy, and everyone is struggling to compete with "low-cost" airlines like JetBlue and Southwest. Increasingly, customers are faced with two options: Either book directly through the airline's website or pay a fee. Over the summer Northwest Airlines announced a new rash of charges: $5 for bookings at its 800 number, $10 for reservations made at the airport, and $7.50 for round-trip tickets booked via most travel agents and online agencies. The latter fee was rescinded after lawsuits started flying, but Northwest clearly intends to change the way people buy tickets. American, United, US Airways, Continental, America West, and ATA all now charge $5 for phone bookings and $10 for tickets at the airport. Southwest, JetBlue, and other low-fare airlines approach the subject from the opposite side, enticing passengers to buy online with special Internet-only rates and discounts. (Either way, the result is the same: It'll cost you more to speak to a live person.) So are the fees ever worth paying? If you're comfortable using a computer and need a simple round trip, probably not. But shelling out the extra $5 or $6 is a good investment if you're booking a complicated multicity ticket, you can't find easy connecting flights, or you want to lock in a fare for 24 hours (typically not allowed with Internet bookings). The bottom line is that if you aren't happy with what you've found on the Internet, call up with questions. They won't charge you until you actually book a ticket.

What you'll find in this story: Internet travel deals, Travel Web sites, hidden savings, inexpensive travel tips, expert secrets Around the time that Google became a verb, shoppers began trolling the Internet en masse for travel deals. Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz grabbed the lion's share of the business early on, and loads of travelers assume they're the best places for bargains today. But new players, as well as sites run by hotels, airlines, and car-rental agencies themselves, have all gotten in on the action. There are more options than ever, but finding the best price has never been more complicated. Here are some of the new rules. Use aggregators The attraction of using meta search engines, also known as screen scrapers or aggregators, is obvious: They retrieve prices from several sources simultaneously. Instead of looking up a fare at Expedia, then Travelocity, American Airlines' site, and so forth, you plug in a request at a site such as Mobissimo, Qixo, or Kayak and let them do the searching for you. Each aggregator works a little differently. Most of the people who use SideStep, the oldest and most established of the bunch, download it onto their computer for side-by-side comparative shopping with other sites. Even though Kayak, the biggest new name in search engines, was still in its testing stage at press time, the site is already exceptionally user-friendly. Rather than throw every result your way, Kayak allows you to specify a window of time for flight departure, how many stops you're willing to put up with, and a range of acceptable prices. Assume no one is objective It's no secret that most travel sites have "preferred partners"--companies that have special contracts so that they're given top billing in search results, whether they're the best value or not. Instead of sifting through skewed options, rejigger the search so that your preferences--say, cheapest airfare or a hotel's proximity to the city center--appear first. In general, aggregators have an air of objectivity because they don't actually sell travel, they just cull prices. But in recent months there's been squabbling about which sites can list which prices--Travelocity, for example, pulled its rates off of Kayak--so be aware that even the aggregators can't give the full picture. Don't expect one site to cut it No site always has the cheapest prices, and no single source searches all the possible options. Airlines such as Southwest and JetBlue rarely show up on third-party search engines. The InterContinental Hotels Group, which includes Holiday Inn, recently pulled nearly all of its properties from Hotels.com and Expedia. It's also impossible to find all of a city's independent hotels at one site, nor can any one source search the range of low-fare carriers in Europe or elsewhere. Be wary of gimmicky guarantees Nearly every travel site has some kind of price guarantee. Most are of dubious value. Orbitz, for example, states that if you find a fare for $5 less than they offer, they'll give you $50 for future travel Sounds good, but caveats and time restrictions make it impractical, if not impossible, to call them on it. At Lodging.com, customers are greeted with the headline "Stop Searching& 110% Price Guarantee" and an example of how the guarantee works: Say you book a hotel for $100 through them, then find it elsewhere for $90. (They don't explain how you'd find the other rate if you were to stop searching, as they suggest.) After you prove the second offer is legit, they give you the price difference ($10), plus 10 percent off the difference (a whopping $1), and the room winds up costing $89. Guarantees are only worth something if customers follow up on them. Most people don't, and even if they do, it's an arduous and not all that rewarding process. Compare apples to apples Some sites include extra fees up front, while others, such as Expedia, are sneaky and bundle up a vague compilation of taxes and service charges at the last minute. Booking policies can also be different--one site may penalize you $10 for canceling a hotel reservation, while at another there's no charge. Book direct Not only will you almost always pay less, chances are you'll get better treatment if you skip the third-party booking engines and make reservations directly. After our magazine mentioned a hotel executive who admitted that her company routinely gives the worst rooms in the house to customers who book through third-party sites, we received dozens of letters from readers saying that they'd been treated poorly at hotels for that very reason. "This is one family that will never use Travelocity again," a typical message read. Always remember that you're not done shopping around until you inquire directly at the source. Consider opaque sites They're nothing new, but sites such as Priceline and Hotwire--you don't find out which hotel, airline, or car-rental company you're working with until your bid has been accepted and your credit card charged--remain good money savers. If you're looking in particular for a decent room for cheap in a big city, Priceline is a fine source. Check out Biddingfortravel.com, a kind of user's guide to Priceline, for help, but be aware that you may not be treated as well at the hotel as someone who's booked direct (see above). Clean your cookies Travel sites are engineered to get the most money out of users, sometimes by trickery. Kelly Malasics, of Bridgeport, Conn., wrote to us about her experience locating a great online fare to Las Vegas, only to have it disappear later in the day. "I deleted the cookies for the site and tried again," she said. "Voilà! I found the flight I wanted at the price I wanted." Pick up a phone The old standard still works. Consolidator airline tickets, charter flights, and other unconventional resources that a good travel agent would know about can rarely be booked online. A hotel manager will be more willing to negotiate rates with a human voice than with a message on a computer screen. And it's often easier to talk through your options with a car-rental agent than scroll through them in the fine print online.

Usually, we're all about following the locals' lead--but sometimes locals are wrong. Here are our eight favorite tourist traps across the land: Hollywood Boulevard, Los AngelesHooray for Hollywood! Not the glamorous Hollywood of yore (the final nail hit that coffin decades ago) or the buzzed-about rejuvenated Hollywood, but the Hollywood that straddles both eras--conveniently located on and around Hollywood Boulevard. It's still sort of fabulous, if you squint: the Walk of Fame (send a SASE to the Chamber of Commerce for a free map: 7018 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028); the Kodak Theatre home-of-Oscar tour (323/308-6363, kodaktheatre.com, $15, kids $10); the elephant-flanked courtyard view of the 81-year-old Hollywood sign; Grauman's Chinese Theatre (323/461-3331, manntheatres.com/chinese). And then there's the tacky stuff that's just plain fun: Ponder a tattoo (California Tattoo, 6700 Hollywood Blvd., 323/462-0084); sip a cocktail while having your nails done (Beauty Bar, 1638 N. Cahuenga Blvd., 323/464-7676) or your shoes shined (Star Shoes, 6364 Hollywood Blvd., 323/462-7827). Finally, if you really want to see where glamour overlaps with sleaze, be sure to ogle Frederick's of Hollywood (6608 Hollywood Blvd., 323/466-5151). Tonga Room, San Francisco Deep inside the Fairmont hotel, in a room that can only be described as "The Brady Bunch Goes to Hawaii and Gets Attacked by the Pirates of the Caribbean," bartenders in aloha shirts cheerfully sling hangover guarantees like the Bora Bora Horror and the Lava Bowl (the latter serves two). The buffet line, in a lone authentic touch, trails over the remains of the S.S. Forester, which sailed between San Francisco Bay and the South Seas before running aground in the early 1940s. Why is the Tonga Room better than most tiki bars? Every half hour a genuine fake tropical storm--with lightning, thunder, and rain-blows across what was once the hotel's swimming pool. The Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason St., 415/772-5278, fairmont.com/sanfrancisco, weekday happy hour drinks start at $5.50. Sunset Celebration, Key West Ironically, it took a passel of hippies to make Key West sunsets a business proposition. In the '60s, when the Florida Keys mostly attracted dropouts and artists, free spirits gathered every night on a crumbling wharf at Mallory Square to toast the dusk, try to spot the god Atlantis in the clouds, and maybe take a pill. Fire-eaters, psychics, tightrope walkers, and other buskers soon brought a little vaudeville to the ritual. Today, the old pier has been converted into a cruise ship dock, performers are vetted by a committee, and the new Hilton hotel next door has put together its own version of the event (going so far as to woo away Dominique the Catman, who trains his felines to jump through flaming hoops). Conchs, as locals call themselves, assiduously avoid Mallory. What they're missing out on is a long, free look at the sun going down on the last vestiges of a decidedly groovier era. Ye Olde  Curiosity Shop, Seattle Ye Olde Curiosity Shop began its life as a museum, founded in 1899 by curio collector Joseph Standley. Today it's a novelty store pushing the likes of potato guns and whoopee cushions to tourists admiring the waterfront--and let's face it, only tourists ever step inside "ye olde" anything. On the back walls, however, is a bizarre collection of exhibits that's undeniably fascinating. What you'll find there: a dozen shrunken heads from Ecuador, a two-headed calf, fleas wearing dresses, three mummified humans (named Sylvester, Sylvia, and Gloria), and the remains of one butch "mermaid." The shop is owned by Standley's great-grandson, Andy James, who reports that Robert Ripley was a "big customer" back in the day. Believe it∨ not. 1001 Alaskan Way, Pier 54, 206/682-5844, yeoldecuriosityshop.com. The Hope Diamond , Washington, D.C. Next time you're in D.C., go straight to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Save time and bypass the entrance on the Mall; the lines are much shorter at the one on Constitution Avenue. Then make your way past the exhibits with actual educational value  to the second floor, for a breath of fresh bling. The National Gem Collection--you didn't know we had one?--has the best array of over-the-top jewelry outside of Europe. The exhibit traces many of the pieces through the time-honored trajectory of all epic ice: from colonial mine to pampered royal head to obscenely rich celebutante to esteemed museum. In particular, note the immense diamond-and-platinum earrings of Marie Antoinette, a gift from husband Louis XVI. Legend has it she was carrying them when she was apprehended fleeing the revolution, shortly before her head would no longer be much improved by such finery. The pièce de résistance, however, is the storied Hope Diamond. An entire room chronicles its long journey and hints at the reputed curse. We should all be so unlucky as to own a 45.52-carat blue diamond. Constitution Ave. at 10th St. NW, 202/633-1000, mnh.si.edu, free. Durgin-Park, Boston Boston is tourist trap central. There'' the Union Oyster House, where John Kerry lunched on Election Day. (He was the first local to step inside in 50 years.) And the Swan Boats in the Public Garden, such an embarrassment for anyone over 6 that fraternities haze pledges by making them take a ride. But Durgin-Park is a trap with credibility. The restaurant has been operating in Faneuil Hall since 1855--well before the area became a stop on the tourist circuit. Tell Rocco, the greeter, you want to sit at a communal table, where you might have a chat with strangers. Then order all the old-fashioned New England favorites (chowder, Yankee pot roast, prime rib), which gruff servers deliver across creaky floors to tables covered in red-and-white-checkered fabric. 340 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 617/227-2038. Café du Monde, New Orleans There's always a line, the menu lists one item of food, and street parking is nonexistent--just three reasons locals are weary of the 143-year-old Café du Monde. Packed with tiny tables and coursing with waiters, the French Quarter institution is no respite from the pandemonium outside. In fact, the majority of the café is outside: With no walls to speak of, there are dozens of front-row seats for viewing the performers, freaks, and horse-drawn carriages of Jackson Square while you sip a coffee with chicory and nibble on a beignet. Oh, those beignets! The deep-fried dough squares, three to an order, come under a snowdrift of powdered sugar. If you so much as sigh dramatically, you'll coat your companions with the stuff. And don't wear black. The slightest tremor while lifting a beignet will leave your clothes gray and sticky. 800 Decatur St., 504/525-4544, always open, except from 6 p.m. on December 24 to 6 a.m. on December 26. Circle Line, New York City Nothing gives New Yorkers the hives like a boat tour, for the sole reason that there's no escape. But New Yorkers' neuroses aren't your problem, so check out the Circle Line. As the name suggests, the three-hour cruise circumnavigates Manhattan. It's a relatively hassle-free way to get a look at the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, New Jersey's Palisades, the Little Red Lighthouse at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the heartbreaking post-9/11 gap in the skyline. The guides are known for their corny jokes--bring an iPod if you want to drown them out--but they're also full of great trivia (20 bridges and tunnels "keep Manhattan from floating away"). On weekends, get there at least a half hour early to score one of the best seats--on the port (left) side of the upper deck, near the stern. Pier 83, W. 42nd St., 212/563-3200, circleline42.com, year-round, except some winter weekdays, adults $26, kids $13.

For a city that makes history daily, it should come as no surprise that the nation's capital is a major repository of important historical artifacts. Among the truly inspiring is the American flag the Marines raised over the Pacific island of Iwo Jima in World War II. In the sadly odd category, I'd put the bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln. For fun, it's the hefty joke file of Bob Hope. Where do curious-minded folks find these objects? Not, as you might think, in the major galleries of the Smithsonian Institution. Anyone contemplating a visit to Washington, D.C., presumably knows about the Smithsonian's great museums on the National Mall, all of which are free to the public. But many people-residents and visitors alike-remain unaware of the city's smaller specialty museums hidden in the Smithsonian's shadow. Their varied art, history, and literary collections rival the Smithsonian's. And they don't charge entrance fees either. As a group, they deliver drama, pathos, beauty, and whimsy. They're as compelling as a movie, as erudite as an Ivy League professor. Not bad for free. Stay at the city's best-known bargain hotel, the Hotel Harrington, and a Washington getaway is a budget bonanza. Ethnic restaurants, exotic and cheap, keep dining costs down, too. I've highlighted ten museums here that will reward you with an exciting, thought-provoking sojourn. With one exception, they're located in or near the city center within walking distance of each other (if you've got strong legs). To get you started, I've grouped them in special-interest categories. Don't try to see them all in one visit; savor them individually as they deserve. The following museums are open year-round. A photo ID is required at several. All subway and bus directions below are from Metro Center, the main subway station. The Washington area code is 202. Battlefield tales America owes much to its armed forces, as visitors are appropriately reminded at the Marine Corps Museum (433-3840) and the Navy Museum (433-6897). They stand as neighbors on the Potomac River at the Washington Navy Yard, a historic site itself, since it's the Navy's oldest shore establishment, dating back to 1799. Both museums trace the history of their respective services from the Revolutionary War years to the present. Currently, the two military museums are open weekdays only. For security reasons, you must call 24 hours ahead. Now somewhat tattered, the famous U.S. flag that flew atop Mount Suribachi is preserved in the Marine Corps Museum. You can also see some of the loose, black, volcanic ash from an Iwo Jima beach that sorely impeded the landing of men and machines. Of these two museums, the Navy puts on the most dramatic show. The World War II display features massive anti-aircraft guns and a submarine room with operating periscopes. One video depicts the launching of planes from a carrier's deck. From the more distant past, a cat-o'-nine-tails recalls flogging as a common naval punishment-it appears quite capable of inflicting considerable pain. Permanently moored just outside the museums, the Navy destroyer Barry is also open for free self-guided tours. The Lincoln bullet, fired by a derringer, is part of a fascinating look at Civil War medicine, a major exhibit at the National Museum of Health and Medicine (782-2200), which is located on the grounds of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Not a place for the queasy, the somewhat macabre museum also displays the right leg bone of Union General Daniel E. Sickles. A cannonball struck him during the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War, and his leg was amputated. He survived and donated the limb to the museum, visiting it on several occasions after the war. Step forward a century to see surgery at the front in the Korean War as represented by artifacts from a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital-a MASH unit of TV fame. Elsewhere, body parts in formaldehyde illustrate the ongoing war against disease. Details: For the Marine/Navy museums, take the Orange/Blue Metro Line to the Eastern Market station, connecting to the N22 bus to the entrance gate. For the NMHM, Red Line to Takoma Park station, connecting to bus 52 or 54 to Walter Reed. This is the only museum too distant from town to reach on foot. Literary treasures English majors take note: You could fill a weekend at a pair of literary powerhouses parked within steps of each other at the base of the Capitol. They are the Folger Shakespeare Library (544-4600), which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and the archives of the Library of Congress (707-8000), claiming such publishing treasures as a first edition of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and an early Wonder Woman comic book. At the Folger, docent Barbara Valakos made sure I saw a copy of a 1623 First Folio, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays-regarded by many academicians as the most important book in the English language. An Elizabethan-style theater open to visitors regularly stages Shakespeare's plays. Totaling more than 85,000 pages, comedian Bob Hope's joke file has been digitally scanned and indexed by the Library of Congress. Visitors can call up examples (I read a dozen) in the Library's Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment, a musical romp through the age of vaudeville. With apologies to Bob, the masterwork at the Library of Congress is a Gutenberg Bible of 1455, printed on vellum and one of only three perfect copies known to exist. Don't miss the twin galleries, "American Treasures" and "World Treasures," for more historic publications. Details: For both museums, take the Orange/Blue Line to Capitol South station. Offbeat artworks America's finest crafts-handmade works of art in wood, glass, metal, and pottery-delight the eye and tease the mind at the Renwick Gallery (357-2531), an often overlooked Smithsonian gallery facing the White House. On my most recent visit, its rooms were filled with mostly avant-garde works-outrageous, comical, or simply elegant. After checking out Ghost Clock, I coveted Game Fish, a giant sailfish sculpture flamboyantly bedecked in colorful buttons, beads, coins, and even a Superman doll. At the Textile Museum (667-0441), this hemisphere's foremost museum devoted to the display and preservation of handmade textiles, recent exhibitions have included an eighteenth-century Chinese "Dragon Coat" of exquisitely embroidered silk, a thirteenth-century striped tunic from Peru, and a vivid red twentieth-century scarf from Bali. These lovely objects illustrate the museum's subtle instruction in the fine art of weaving. The museum occupies a gorgeous brick mansion and garden just off Embassy Row. The National Building Museum (272-2448) focuses on the art of building design, highlighting prominent architects and their work and tackling such hot topics as smart growth. I lingered at a display of small scale models made by architectural students for a class assignment. They tackled one project, the design for a Las Vegas casino, with obvious gusto. Details: For the Renwick, Red Line to Farragut North station; for the Textile Museum, Red Line to Dupont Circle station; for the Building Museum, Red Line to Judiciary Square station. Messages from the past The United States mail gets delivered, foul weather or not. So assert the interesting (really) permanent exhibits at the National Postal Museum (357-2991), another frequently ignored Smithsonian offshoot. With the help of interactive devices, displays trace the origins of our postal system from colonial days to the present-noting en route the legendary Pony Express, the debut of airmail and-for better or worse-the advent of mail-order catalogs. At one video station, I played postal pilot, navigating a cargo of airmail through a dense midwestern fog. Like generations of carriers, I delivered the mail on time. Details: Red Line to Union Station. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (488-0400) tells the harrowing story of Nazi Germany's systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry, homosexuals, and other "undesirables." The narrative, aided by films from the war years, vividly describes the notorious ghettos and death camps. A Polish boxcar of the type known to have transported victims to their awful fate is among the artifacts. Inside, you can only begin to imagine their fear. Upon entering the museum, you are randomly assigned a booklet bearing the name, photo, and story of a real-life victim; by the end of your visit, you'll learn whether that person perished or survived. Watch the films. Study the exhibits. Listen to the survivors. Though emotionally draining, the experience is a reminder, as the museum suggests, of our "responsibilities as citizens of a democracy." Details: Orange/Blue Line to Smithsonian station. When you go Washington's best-known budget hotel, beloved by school groups and Scout troops, is the 245-room Hotel Harrington (800/424-8532, hotelharrington.com), $89 to $135 a night for two people; $135 to $145 for a family room for four. The Harrington is conveniently located near the Metro Center station and the National Mall. For cheaper lodging, check into Hostelling International's 270-bed facility (202/737-2333, hiwashingtondc.org), $29 per bunk for nonmembers. Local hotels often offer weekend specials. Check with a discounter, such as Hotel Reservations Network (800/355-1394, hotels.com). To keep meal costs down, dine at the Harrington Caf,, featuring Hungarian beef goulash and an all-you-can-eat salad bar for $10.65. Or try such low-priced city center caf,s as El Tamarindo (Salvadoran cuisine, 1785 Florida Ave. NW), Full Kee (Chinese, 509 H St. NW) in Chinatown, and Moby Dick (Persian, Connecticut Ave. at N St. NW). A one-day Metrorail pass (metroopensdoors.com), good for both subway and buses, costs $5 per person. For more on museums, hotels, and restaurants: D.C. Visitor Information Center (202/328-4748, dcvisit.com).