Smokey Mountains Trip

- Stay in Gatlinburg. Lot of fun things to do such as Sky rides, Gondola Rides (nice experience), Ripley's Aquarium, Ripley's Believe it or not and lots of shopping
- Don't go to Guinness book of world records show as that is utter waste of money (30$ per head)
- Hotels are very expensive in Summer & Fall
- Drive thru smokey mountains and take pics at viewpoints. There are some nice waterfalls within 1-5 mile hikes. Wear comfortable shoes if you plan to go for hiking to see the falls. If you are lucky, you might find some bears too.
- And go to Cherokee, Indian trial etc. if you are a first-time visitor. It's good to see how Native Americans lived in early days.
- If you go as a group of friends, it's fun to stay in the huge cabins in the woods. It's so much fun. You have to carry all the groceries and cook there.

Atlanta Trip

Important places to visit in Atlanta

- Georgia Aquarium
- CNN center - expensive. only funny thing was to know how weather news works
- Coke Museum - u can drink lots of samples and worth visiting it once
- Swami Narayan Temple - wonderful lighting and architecture inside. Must see
- Global Mall for all Indian shopping, Beauticians, Food etc.
- Balaji Temple if interested
- Lenox mall for all branded shopping if interested
- Lot of Indian restaurants. Some of them we visited were, Saravana Bhavan, Woodlands, Gokul Sweets, Indian palace, Bombay Chef, Shri Krishna etc.
- For gold shopping, we go to Malani Jewelers. Good collection. Make sure to bargain as per Indian rates here. 
- And definitely visit Patel Brothers for their snacks and all kinds of Indian groceries as they are much cheaper when compared to other cities in US
- If you still have time, go to Chattanooga, a nice hill station 2 hrs from Atlanta

Washington DC Trip

Must see things in Washington DC -

- White House (See on both sides and take pictures)
- Washington Monument (if u go early in the morning before 8.30 am, u can buy tickets to go on top of this monument)
- Museum of Natural History (love the diamonds here and my son loved the amimals)
- Museum of American History (First lady dress room is a highlight here)
- Capitol Hill - you can take tour tickets for this and go inside..but u should not carry any food, water or any sprays. I had to dump them all.
- Washington War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- If you have more time, you can checkout more museums like Air and Space, Art Museum, National Botanical gardens, Arlington Cemetry, National Auquarium etc.

Some Tips -

- Take a hotel in Arlignton area if you dont find one in downtown. Nice 4 star hotels come pretty cheap here in priceline. But parking will be expensive. We stayed in Hotel Palomar once and parking rates are very reasonable here. There are other hotels like Sheraton where we had to pay 20$ every day for parking..Outrageous.

- When you are ready to visit places, either you can take a CAB and come to the national mall or get your car and park it in Ronald Reagan Building. Its 10$ here. Other places it costs around 20$ per day.

- For those with kids, there is a big McDonalds in Air & Space museum. First time we visited, we didnt know and struggled a lot. We ate some food that we got from home as there were no restaurants near by and if we take the car out from parking, we had to pay another 15$ unnecessarily.

- After visiting white house, monument, lincoln memorial, take a cab to go to capitol hill as its very far to walk. CAB will cost less than 10$

- If you still have time, you can check out Luray Caverns in Virginia

This is it for now..Will add more as I remember..