Planning a Staycation to Washington DC [Sponsored]

Are you planning a staycation to Washington DC this summer? My family is heading to DC for a weekend. I’ve lived in the DC area for 21 years and there is a lot that I have not seen. We won’t see it all in a weekend, but with some planning, we’ll see a lot. This post is sponsored by HP.

I’m using my HP Pavilion x360 to plan our staycation to Washington DC and printing my plans on the HP ENVY 5530 e-AiO.

NOTE: Don’t miss my giveaway of the HP Pavilion x360 & HP ENVY 5530 e-AiO. Ends June 24, 2014.

Planning A Staycation to Washington DC With Windows Apps

There are several Windows apps that I used to help me in planning our family staycation.

Bing Travel App

The first place I always check for travel information is the Bing Travel App.

From the Bing app, you can find hotel and attraction information. There are reviews for everything and lots of pictures.

The Bing Travel app also links to other Travel experts like Fodors, Lonely Planet and more. From this one app, you can get enough information to plan your staycation to Washington DC.

Trip Advisor App

Next, I use the Trip Advisor app to get another perspective on the attractions that are must-see.

Using these two apps, I’m coming up with a list of attractions that I think my family would like to visit. Then the 6 of us will vote on their top 5 and the ones with the most votes, we’ll do. The democratic way of planning a family staycation.

Printing On the HP ENVY 5530 e-AiO With Instant Ink

I’m creating a list of the top attractions and I will be printing it out on the HP ENVY 5530 e-AiO printer. I’ve used this printer for a few months now and it’s been upgraded to default printer in the house. We’ve had issues in the past with other printers staying connected to our wireless network. This printer is online about 99% of the time. And when it’s not, it’s usually because we had issues with the network and we had to reboot everything and I forgot to reboot the printer.

Another great feature of this printer is the Instant Ink.  Instant Ink is a service from HP where you pay a monthly fee (starting at $2.99) and you receive special ink cartridges for your printer. The printer will notify the Instant Ink service when you are getting low and send you ink before you run out. The monthly fee varies depending on much often you print each month.

Not all printer have this service available, but the HP ENVY 5530 does. I love it because with 4 kids in the house doing project, we often run to the store at 10:00 pm for ink cartridges. Now, we won’t have to do that. Thank you!

Disclosure: This post is part of a program I am participating in on behalf of HP. I received an HP PC, an HP printer, an Instant Ink starter kit, a Snapfish gift card and other items as part of my participation. No monetary compensation was received. All opinions are my own.