Washington to Virginia Beach road trip: 24 stops worth the detour

Strantz conjured windswept Ireland out of inland Virginia with fescue-cloaked mounds, vast bunkers, and severe contours. Renovated and reopened in 2019.

A sister act to Royal New Kent, Stonehouse tumbles through dramatic elevation change and namesake stone outcroppings. Heavily mounded with ravine carries and big greens.

Chesapeake Bay sand with calmer water, fishing piers, and Norfolk neighborhood texture

a big three-mile boardwalk resort beach at the Chesapeake mouth

A Pete Dye course along the James River.

a calm, historic Chesapeake Bay beach with gentle water

A well-regarded daily-fee track near Fredericksburg.

45 paved miles from D.C.’s suburbs into Virginia horse country

Potomac/Aquia Creek peninsula park with a visitor center, canoe-kayak and motorboat launches, and paddle-in camping.

the first lighthouse authorized by the U.S. government (1792), at the mouth of the Chesapeake

a small riverfront beach beside Revolutionary history and a walkable waterfront

A 72-foot bronze-look giant, buried to the elbows, appears to be clawing his way out of the earth on a man-made beach beside the Potomac. J. Seward Johnson Jr.'s 1980 sculpture spent 28 years at DC's Hains Point before a National Harbor developer bought it for $700,000 in 2007 and moved it across the river to Maryland in 2008 -- so the giant now technically

a quiet bay beach where the first Jamestown colonists landed

a quieter residential beach south of the Virginia Beach strip

A Rees Jones course carved through coastal pines.

a paved 52-mile route between Richmond and Williamsburg