The tour of this beautifully preserved slice of Colonial America begins at the Visitor Center, where you can get your first taste of the nation’s largest living museum.

Note: This 2.5+ mile-long tour covers the essentials of Colonial Williamsburg in 2-3 hours.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

Your first stop is at the doorstep of the Peyton Randolph House, the former home of a fiery revolutionary and one of the oldest buildings in Williamsburg! You might not have heard of William Randolph, but he was a trusted ally of folks like Thomas Jefferson

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Keep your ears open at our next stop for the iconic fife and drum parade which marches through the town regularly. Here, you’ll also learn about the military significance of these old-timey instruments

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

A simple two-story 18th-century white frame farmhouse nestled on 585 acres of lawn, garden, and woodlands, Bassett Hall once was the Williamsburg home of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller .Philip Johnson, a member of the House of Burgesses from King and Queen County, Virginia, is believed to have built the 18th-century frame house sometime between 1753 and 1766.
Purchased by Burwell Bassett around 1800
Union cavalryman George Armstrong Custer guest in home during the Civil War

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

After that, you’ll arrive at the Raleigh Tavern, where rebellious Virginians met to plot a possible revolution against their British rulers. These meetings even welcomed famous names like Thomas Jefferson!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

Then you’ll come to the Colonial Williamsburg Magazine, the site of a tense standoff between American patriots and British soldiers trying to steal all the gunpowder from the town before it could fall into rebel hands

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

Directly opposite the Magazine, you’ll find the old courthouse, where residents of Williamsburg heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud for the very first time

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

Up next is the house of George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who stands out from most of his compatriots because of one simple fact: he was an abolitionist. In Virginia, a state which used a huge amount of slave labor, this didn’t exactly make him a lot of friends!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

After that is the Bowden-Armistead House, the history of which showcases some of the deep divisions which cut through Williamsburg around the time of the Civil War. See, the owner was a northerner, and you can probably imagine how his Virginian neighbors felt about that…

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

The final stop on your tour is the Wren Building, an impressive structure which isn’t just the oldest building on the William & Mary Campus, but the oldest college building in the entire United States!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

Our tour begins outside the Yorktown Battlefield Visitor Center at 1000 Colonial National Historical Pkwy, Yorktown. If you’re not there already, you should head there now.

Note: This 10+ mile-long tour covers the essentials of Yorktown Battlefield in 2-3 hours.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Cornwallis and Washington send representatives to the Moore House. The British are offering total surrender to the French and American coalition.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

This ground is still an essential part of American history. It’s here where plans were drawn for the final battle of the American Revolution.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Just as the French Navy made a large contribution to the success of the American Revolution, so did the French artillery.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Grand French Battery, the location of the largest concentration of French Artillery during the Battle of Yorktown.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

You might be surprised to find that this isn’t actually a Revolutionary War cemetery. Instead, this is a Civil War burial ground!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

We end our journey at a fitting place, the Yorktown Victory Monument. This monument was conceived soon after Cornwallis’s surrender.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free