This was a great tour. As a solo traveller or couple, it is difficult to find a Washington DC to Gettysburg tour without paying a LOT for a private group tour. Galen, our driver and facilitator, provides an excellent solution at a very reasonable price.
There’s a 90 min comfortable journey each way at the start/end. Where possible, Galen dropped us off individually at our hotels at the end of the tour, which was appreciated.
Once at Gettysburg there are three parts to the tour - all of which are included in the tour price already paid:
1. Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center - short film, cyclorama, and museum. All are very high quality. The museum is quite extensive so don’t expect to see everything.
2. Gettysburg town centre - be sure to visit the free David Wills House museum next to the Lincoln with Tourist statue. Potentially also the cemetery.
3. Two hour Battlefield tour with Licensed Guide - there are currently only 50-60 people licensed to give tours of Gettysburg. They are PhD-level and study for 5-6 years to be licensed. We were a small group of 4 + Galen + licensed guide. For two hours Galen drives around the battlefield, at the instruction of the guide, who talks through, in incredible detail, the three day battle. There are regular drop offs along the way to step out the car and hear the story from various spots around the battlefield. This is the absolute highlight of the tour as you can ask literally any question and the guide will give you an incredibly thorough and curated answer - they know literally everything. It works brilliantly, with Galen whizzing us around - much better than the big coach tours you see there.
Well done Galen and Co for facilitating an incredibly detailed, informative and brilliant tour. There was so much high quality information and in a variety of mediums. Well worth the money.