This quick 2.9-mile walk along the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail is packed with everything you could want: quiet pathways, pretty boardwalks, ice cream, fountains, outdoor art, ping pong and a beer garden. All with a view of the Anacostia River.

A perfect holiday outing when you have an onslaught of guests is one that takes very little effort on your part but delivers spectacular "oohs" and "aahs." The Buzzard Rock North hiking trail in the George Washington National Forest provided that for me and my family the day after Thanksgiving.

The spooky origin story of Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve, the blazing fall colors and the fact that there’s a warming tavern meal and a cold beer just around the corner in Leesburg convinced me that there is no better place to take a walk during the stretch between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

As summer draws to a close, it would seem wise to put aside such warm-weather activities. But what I learned from that gorgeous Monday white water tubing with the help of the Harpers Ferry Adventure Center is that there is no better time to go than when no one else is going.

Maybe not everyone gets as excited at labyrinthian adventures through the trees as I do, but when I stumbled upon info about the Blue Hole swimming hole at Sugar Hollow while researching a recent trip to Charlottesville, I got jazzed!

This was my family’s fifth or sixth trip to the tree-climbing and zip-lining adventure land in Montgomery County, and we’d ended every trip covered in sweat, showing off some impressive scrapes and bruises, and seriously psyched about our ability to look a leaf-strewn death in the face. Visiting The Adventure Park at Sandy Spring is like being in labor – the end result is so cool you forget about the screaming and crying that preceded it.