91. Colonial Williamsburg Is More Than Just Old Buildings | Tips & Tricks for Your Visit

Do you ever wonder what else there is to do in Colonial Williamsburg besides just walking around the old buildings? If you're looking for unique experiences beyond the usual tour, this episode is for you. Tune into hear about my eerie experience on a ghost tour, where I enjoyed the best meals, and why you need to venture a little outside of Colonial Williamsburg to round out the experience.

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Transcript

Hello, jetsetters, and welcome back to another episode of jetsetting with me. Today, we are going to talk about 3 things to do in Colonial Williamsburg besides just walking around the old buildings. But before we get started, I can't believe it. This is episode 91. And to celebrate, when we get to a 100, which just is late March, there are going to be some fabulous giveaways on that 100th episode. So if you want the chance to be a part of that, then please hit up the show notes. Go to the link that says join my celebration launch team, something to that effect. You'll know it when you see it.

Get subscribed there. That puts you on my weekly email, Sunday Musings, come Sunday for you, and you can get all the deets on this fabulous giveaway. There might be some vacation planning included. Hint, hint, hint. Okay. On with the episode about Colonial Williamsburg. So if you listened to last last week's episode, you know I'm currently on my latest Hamilton binge. This does happen every so often.

Usually, it's around July 4th. But the soundtrack has been on replay for me since I returned from my latest trip to Williamsburg, Virginia and the historic Virginia Triangle. In fact, I'm hearing it now when I say number 1. So the number one thing that everyone should do is the ghost tour of historic Williamsburg. Now to clarify a little bit, Williamsburg is not a reenactment or a Disney designed tourist attraction. There are some buildings that have been restored or rebuilt, but there are original buildings which have stood since the Virginia Assembly, aka the Virginia legislature, voted to allow their representatives at the Continental Congress to vote for independence. Historic Virginians, which stood in those buildings and on that same green that you will walk around, include George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Also, presidents Madison and Monroe.

These buildings are old. I'm talking older than me and my almost 80 year old mother. And the ancient haunted stories that you will hear on these ghost tours, they're fun to hear them whether you believe in ghosts or not. So our tour, it was winter. We got all bundled up. I was in cold weather training, as I also mentioned before, and we took a 90 minute out tour, quote, unquote, walking tour. It was sort of a slow stroll, and you can do it. Anybody can do it, wheelchair, slow walker.

It's accessible. So no problem there. One of the buildings on the tour is the Peyton Randolph House, and it is said to be the most haunted building in the state of Virginia. Now, I do happen to believe in paranormal activity, but you can take what I'm about to tell you as a story and nothing else. So at the Peyton Randolph house, I took a horizontal photo because it looks like an old inn. And in fact, at one time, after Peyton Randolph, it was used as an inn. So I took it horizontal, and it had a glare above the house. It would look like cloud cover, although there was no cloud cover that night.

And we actually made a joke about the stars are are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas because we actually could see the stars. There was no clouds or precipitation whatsoever. It was just a cold clear night. But when I looked at the photo, that kinda cloud cover glare, it didn't appear. So I did the whole thing again trying to get that glare, and both times, I got this very clear photo. And I didn't say anything to anyone because I honestly just attributed it to my imagination, photography skills, not anything that would be real. I mean, the true enthusiasts who showed up for this tour with their equipment, and their activity counters, and their ghost apps, and whatever, I don't get into it like that. We're only getting readings of, quote, slight activity, but then our guide said that that was actually a normal occurrence at this stop of the house for people to take photos at night when it looks like daytime or to get a glare that doesn't show up in their photo.

And I was like, oh, my God. That actually did happen to me. So I'm still in the phase of looking at both my photos, which I will add to Instagram, and remembering what I saw, and sort of freaking out, and, like, kinda believing it. But sometimes, like, my rational mind can't get my head around it, but it's a true story. So the tour we took didn't go inside any buildings, but there are tours that do. But it is at night, and to recreate the atmosphere of the early 18th century, the tour is by candlelight. I mean, it's dark. And honestly, I'm not really sure I wanna would have wanted to go inside any of those buildings.

I would have been terrified if somebody had, like, tapped me on the shoulder or something. And there's also a variation on that tour that includes a bar crawl called ghosts and grog. If we have had time, I definitely would have wanted to get on on that. Okay. Number 2. I know I'm not as good as Phillipa Sue by any or, yeah, we won't go there. Okay. Do get the ticket for Williamsburg that goes inside the open buildings.

Be sure to see both the Governor's Royal Palace, the courthouse, which is the oldest building still standing, and the parliament building. The parliament building is so called because we were not yet a colony, and we mirrored the British. But there are specialty tours that don't require the ticket. These are tours dedicated to those in society who were marginalized at that time, like women, black people, pretty much everybody who wasn't a white rich man, to discuss their impact on society at that time. There are also specialty tours where you can learn about how food was made and kept fresh. Spoiler alert, not really well. There was a lot of sickness. Or the textiles, or even learning about the architecture.

And all of these tours are offered outside of the Williamsburg Trust by local tour companies and scholars. So those are basically things that I can recommend for you. You won't find them, like, at the Williamsburg Visitor Center. Like, those are things that we should plan for you in advance, and everyone should do at least one of those special tours. So it is walking around the old buildings, but walking around the old buildings with a purpose. And number 3, get out of Williamsburg. Just 15 minutes away, you can be at the battlefield of Yorktown, where there is a pleasant few hours you can spend. It's great for if it's too hot, too cold, or raining at the American Revolution Museum, and you'll see the place where American independence was officially won at Yorktown.

You can actually see, well, envision in your mind's eye where the British soldier held up the white flag, and Britain conceded the battle of Yorktown and thus the war to Americans. And then we finally became American citizens, or, actually, we were citizens of the colonies of America at that time. But I digress, and you can learn more about that at the revolutionary museum. And the museum is not, like, a very long stop. We managed to do it in just a few hours, but you can go outside, and they have, like, what a campsite would have looked like, a battlefield campsite. And they do have people dressed to the period who will teach you about the cooking, the sleeping arrangements, 6 people to a small tent where they store their guns, the medical. There's even they allowed, like, outside vendors in who sold, you know, whiskey, and I guess it would be something like the you know, at camp where you go to camp and you can buy something like that, but for the bat for the men at battle. And they played games.

Like, there's a whole table that explains all the different old card and dice games. It was very cool. Okay. That was number 3. So number 1, do the ghost tour. Number 2, do a specialty walking tour. Number 3, get out of Williamsburg and go see Yorktown. And you know, I always like to give you a bonus, and I'm a foodie.

So, of course, one more thing you should do that isn't just walking around outside of the buildings is to eat a meal. There are several colonial buildings that are a part of Williamsburg, which are restaurants with menus based in American history, like Christina Campbell's Tavern, where the recipe for the fried fish on the menu comes from Thomas Jefferson's personal cookbook. So in conclusion, there is a lot to do in Williamsburg, and it should be a required visit for every single American citizen. And if you really enjoy history, you should go in both the spring and summer seasons and the fall slash winter season because there's vast difference in the decor and the conditions. There was no air conditioning or heating, so, well, they have made some update modifications, but, still, you can learn about life in those different seasons. And I can help you make that happen. So don't forget to check out the show notes. There's a contact me page, and there's also a link to get in on the giveaway happening in just 9 more episodes.

Until then, jetsetters, travel safe.