Hampton Roads, once known as Tidewater, Virginia, is actually two distinct regions divided by the broad mouth of the James River. Locals refer to them as the Southside and the Peninsula.
Once kept apart by ferries and tolls, they have grown increasingly isolated as the area’s population swells and traffic congestion on interstate bridges and tunnels again makes the river a regular choke point.
Seven of the state’s largest 10 cities are located here, and the region’s 1.6 million population is 20 percent of Virginia as a whole. There’s a third distinct but dispersed community—the military. Hampton Roads has the nation’s largest concentration of uniform personnel at its numerous Navy, Air Force, and Army installations. Those service members and their families, if singled out, would form another top-10 Virginia city. If you add the military members who have retired in this area, the impact gets even more impressive. The Navy alone counts 84,000 active duty members in Hampton Roads with another 97,000 family members and 44,000 retirees and surviving spouses.
It’s impossible to miss the area’s biggest attraction. Turn east and stop when you hear the breakers. You could spend an entire vacation right there and not feel cheated. But you would be missing out on so much more. Many folks look for options when the skies cloud up. Rain or shine, these gems can hold their own against the wonders of nature. Some, like Nauticus, defy easy definition but are still fun to explore. Others, like the Mariners’ Museum, long ago eclipsed their origin as mere repositories and have become venerable institutions. Places like the Norfolk Botanical Gardens and the Virginia Beach Boardwalk take advantage of what nature has to offer. Others, like Mount Trashmore, artificially give nature a boost.
We have the mystic lure of Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment, and the religious pilgrims attracted to Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network.
And, always, there is the military.
Nearly all of these places, apart from the ones at the Oceanfront or in downtown Norfolk, offer free parking, so that shouldn’t be a concern.
From historic homes to living tableaus, working studios to one of the finest collections of art outside of New York, Philly, and LA, Hampton Roads has a wide variety of museums to meet every interest.
There are museums dedicated to the military and others that focus intensely on one culture. There are hands-on museums and others that are just handy. You can walk the deck of a dreadnaught or climb the winding stairs in a lighthouse. There are so many historic homes open for visits that you could specialize in that genre alone and keep busy.
You can spend months just moving from one museum to another in Hampton Roads and still not see everything. But don’t get paralyzed by all the options. Just pick a type and explore. Many are free, some operate through donations, and none is expensive. Some museums, like the Mariners’ Museum and the USS Monitor Center, have become regional attractions in their own right and will be covered in that chapter. Another don’t-miss attraction is the Children’s Museum of Virginia, which is covered in the Kids’ Stuff chapter.
So you’ve been to the beach and hit a couple historic spots. What’s left for the kids to see and do? Plenty. Hampton Roads is a young, vibrant community when you look at the demographics, and that means there are lots of kids here and businesses and attractions lined up to serve them.
There are summer camps of all sorts, and places where you can ride horses or learn to ice skate.
There’s a world-class museum geared entirely for children in Portsmouth and many others that make special efforts to keep them entertained. There are city parks for adventurous tots and others for teens who love to see how much air they can get under their wheels while doing tricks on half pipes.
The resort area has its requisite amusement, water park, miniature golf, and car-track offerings. Chesapeake has its own take on water fun, with paddleboats and canoes to explore an enclosed lagoon. And in Hampton you can chill rather than thrill on the restored carousel.
The area offers children’s classes in art and theater and a resident troupe that has sent graduates on to Broadway and beyond.
Then there are the less obvious excursions that are sure to please the kids, like a sightseeing trip on the pedestrian ferry between Norfolk and Portsmouth through one of the world’s busiest harbors.
The options are only limited by your imagination.
Two thirds of America’s population lives within a day’s drive of Virginia Beach, the visitor’s bureau likes to boast. If you look at that from our end of the telescope, it means folks in Hampton Roads are the same motoring distance from many of the nation’s biggest cities. The national mall in Washington, D.C., is just 200 miles up the road; Baltimore’s Inner Harbor another 45; Philadelphia and its Independence Square is at 250. Even New York City’s Times Square is within that 8-hour-drive window at 348 miles.
I won’t waste time or ink on information about what you can do or see in such places. A couple pages here can’t even touch the surface of what’s going on in the nation’s major metropolises. If you want a really detailed exploration, there are Insiders’ Guides to Washington, Philly, and Baltimore to really scratch that itch. Instead, I’ll let you in on the less chronicled locations where most of us sate our weekend wanderlust.