The World Vegan Travel Podcast
The World Vegan Travel Podcast
Vegan Food Scene in Washington D.C. From a Local | CK Westbrook
In today’s episode, we’re joined by CK Westbrook, a science fiction author, environmentalist, and long-time Washington DC resident. CK is the author of The Impact Series, a four-book (and growing!) collection of speculative novels that weave together themes of politics, environmental crisis, and veganism. Her main characters are always vegan, reflecting her own lifestyle and her belief in normalizing plant-based choices through storytelling.
Beyond her writing, CK has spent more than two decades working in environmental policy and advocacy in Washington DC. When she’s not writing or lobbying, she’s traveling—having visited all fifty states and all seven continents. In this conversation, CK shares her perspective on DC’s vegan food scene, the cultural and political life of the city, and how her creative writing intersects with her environmental activism
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[00:00:00] Hello CK and welcome to The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Hi. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast to talk about, well, dining in Washington DC and the life and the vibe that travelers can experience when they go there. And you are a long-term DC resident, from what we talked about before the call, and also information that you've given me. And that's so interesting because DC is a unique place in the world, I think. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do in the vegan space, and your creative pursuits?
Sure. I live and work in Washington DC. I write science fiction novels and I have a series that's been published called 'The Impact Series', and so far it consists of four books, but I have two more that are going to be published soon. And my main characters are usually vegan, actually, always vegan. And I have other characters that are vegan. So it's kind of my way of incorporating vegan food into kind [00:01:00] of a creative way. So when people are reading it, you know, maybe they'll think, 'Oh, being a vegan is cool.' I'm an environmentalist and I've been working in Washington DC for 20 years, and there's a lot of environmental implications and reasons. Really important reasons for our vegan lifestyle, contributing to a better environment.
Often science fiction has environmental themes, right? And natural resource battles and issues. And my main character, she's vegan. So it comes up when she orders, and when she's on a quest to find out. I should say, the premise of the book, is that there's a global mass shooting, and almost every gun owner in the world turns their weapon on themselves in a terrifying 15 minute window. Worldwide chaos. Of course, the United States gets hit the hardest because, you know, most Americans, not most, a lot of Americans have guns. There's a very crazy gun culture here. So she has to go on this quest and figure out how on earth, and why on earth, does something so catastrophic happen, and being a vegan comes up when she's trying to travel from different states. She just happens to be a vegan. But it's also kind of relevance in the sense [00:02:00] that the book has a lot of environmental themes, and being a vegan is better for the environment.
I love it. And now you are a lobbyist, I think, in your regular, your main job, I think so. How did you go from this industry into creative writing? Of course, it's communication. I can see the threads there, but Sci Fi, does it feel like a natural part of lobbying?
It's interesting. As an environmentalist, I've done everything. I've done policy, I've done grassroots, basically trying to get Americans to encourage their lawmakers and decision makers to vote in ways and take actions that protect the environment. Air, water, wildlife, biodiversity. We're in a climate, and a biodiversity extinction crisis. So getting a little frustrated with that because we have all the science, we have all the reports, we have all the activism, we have polling that shows that Americans are concerned about wildlife and the environment. And then you run into this huge wall [00:03:00] of corporate ownership of our legislatures. And now it's like on steroids, how bad it is. So you know, when you speak to a lawmaker, you're really talking to oil and gas. I just started to get really frustrated with the one tiny step forward and then 10 feet backwards. So I think the creativity for writing these novels came out of my frustration.
So I was like, well, I'm going to just try a different angle, and creativity is a really healthy way of expressing ourselves, you know, be it whatever it is. Painting, music, novels. I kind of channeled my love of the environment, my frustration, what politics and my love of food and vegan food into my novels. I think it's like the next step for trying to educate people about why protecting our environment and wildlife is so important. And it's also again, therapeutic for me and my frustration with the state of the political world in America and Washington, DC.
And so can you tell me again, how many books you've had published? You've got two more coming out, right?
Yes. So [00:04:00] 'The Impact Series' consists of The Shooting, which is book one, Collision, which is book two, and Judgment, which is book three. Two were published in 2022. One was published in 2023 and the Aftermath was published in 2024, just last September. That one is like part of the series, but it's five years later after The Shooting because people kept asking like, when's the dust settled? Are we in a dystopia? Are we in utopia? Like, what is the world like? So I was like kind of responding to the reader's questions, and then I wrote 'Aftermath'. But it has different characters, but there's a lot of vegans in that one too. Then the two books that are coming out, one will be out at the end of this year and one will be out next year, but we don't have set dates. The publisher will be giving those to me soon. They are prequels kind of leading up to what happened with space, and what happened with the collision, and what happened with like Kessler Syndromes, and these other elements of the books, and politics that led up to the global mass shooting on July 20th, 2020.
That is absolutely fascinating. Now, I've got a bit of a confession to make. I am not a huge reader for a ton of reasons that I won't get [00:05:00] into, but if I was a big reader or if I was going to read fiction, like this would be the kind of thing that I would really love because I love apocalyptic themed stuff like, 'The Last Of Us', 'The Walking Dead', anything with the apocalypse in there. I just think that's an absolutely fascinating premise for a book and now a series. So congratulations on that. That's amazing.
Thank
you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I think you would love them.
Have you ever had a really long plane ride? I don't know, going somewhere fun in the world. Maybe Japan, maybe Africa. Maybe you could check one out. They're pretty fast reads. They are very suspenseful. They're like one day after the shooting, two days after the shooting, three days after the shooting. So they're really suspenseful.
And are they available on audible or audio books because it has to be on audio.
Yes. The three are audible or anywhere you download. And the woman who read them is really awesome. Aftermath is not done yet, but we're going to get that done soon. That doesn't happen for, with my publishing house until like six months after the book [00:06:00] comes out. And of course, they're on eBooks and in libraries and Amazon, almost any bookstore can order them. So they're basically anywhere in every format.
Perfect. I'm going to check it out after this call. Maybe I will be inspired to actually pick up a book. That would be amazing. Alright, so you are based in Washington DC, a place with a unique political and cultural identity. How does politics show up in the vegan food scene there? I'm curious.
So politics in DC influences everything. So every time we get a new administration, things change and the city almost like weirdly reinvents itself. So right now I feel like things are not good for the vegan scene at all. We have a lot of restaurants shutting down, not just vegan restaurants. There was a thing in the Washington Post saying that 40% of restaurants in DC will close by the end of this year. Our unemployment is skyrocketing because we've had massive layoffs of the federal government workforce, kind of traumatizing, really [00:07:00] fast, since the Trump administration has come in, so that's a trickle down. A lot of people in DC either work for the federal government, for nonprofits like environmental community, that's lobbies and advocates, and works with the government. Or maybe you are a contractor that supports the government or you're in politics. So there's like this whole machine. And then the restaurants, the museums, the tourism, supports all of that as well. So those are like our big industries, right? So when one gets hurt and gets hit bad, it's a trickle down effect. I would say, like during the Obama years when Obama first got elected, 'woo', there was party in the streets. I felt like there was a million restaurants opening every day. We had this influx of kids, not kids, 20 and 30 year olds just flowing in. There was like this really, like optimism in the air. A lot of vegan restaurants were opening. It's always been a multicultural city. We have every kind of food in the world. But it's gotten, like, we didn't come out of the pandemic very strong because of the crime rates and we had a lot of other [00:08:00] issues. And then with the Trump administration, cutting so many jobs so fast, it's just been really bad, and it's been a bummer watching some of my favorite restaurants close.
Okay. That's just so a fascinating that the administration could impact these things so significantly. And by the sounds of it, a city that's already on the edge, a little bit for a number of reasons that just makes the impact even stronger of these things. Wow, that's fascinating. Okay, Washington DC of course, is even if you're not into politics, it's definitely an amazing place to visit because you have these world class museums there, et cetera. So could you give us a bit of an overview of the reasons why people might visit Washington DC even if they're there just for tourism reasons.
Right. I feel like in America, almost every kid or every person comes to Washington DC at some point in their life. Maybe it's a school trip, maybe it's their [00:09:00] parents. Maybe it's a college trip, because you know, this city belongs to every American citizen. The Smithsonians, which are, you know, air space, natural history, Native American, African American. We have museums, art museums, and almost all of them are free. They're paid with the tax dollars, but they're pretty spectacular. And they circle the mall, and it's very like institutional. And then on one end of the mall you have this amazing, it's my favorite one, the Lincoln Memorial. And then on the other end of the mall you have the United States Capitol. And in between there you have the White House and the Washington Monument. And it's very spectacular. It's also part of our history. Tourism is huge here. People all over the world come for the cherry blossom season, and we have the Heritage Festival, which is always in July on the mall. And that represents different cultures in different countries. I think people from all over the world are also intrigued with DC because it is, you know, and it used to be almost the center of the world, right? I mean, it's the most powerful place in the world. We can debate that it's declining for a long time. And then a lot of brilliant people, geniuses who, you know, run NASA and [00:10:00] run NIH, and science, and investigations into pandemics and whatever else. So it really has this big, broad draw. I would never say it was never really a foodie town, like just thinking about how long I've been here. I think it was a real steak and potato, kind of like old school, like lobbyist politician. The museum of the American Indian has a cultural food, so it's kind of got a famous cafeteria, and they have vegan options, and a lot of it is just marked as vegetarian. If you ask, is it vegan, they'll tell you because they have a lot of lentils and potatoes, and it's actually healthy food. There's always going to be some french fries and chips because it's America. There's food trucks everywhere, but very few are vegan. The museums have generally an Impossible or a Beyond Burger, but it's more catering to the vegetarians. I never know if the bread is vegan, like it's just better than nothing, you know? If you come to the Capitol, the United States Capitol has a big visitor center underneath it, and that's a beautiful building, and it's very historical and everybody should come and tour it. It's just very cool. When you come to DC, [00:11:00] and you want to meet with your senator or your house member or their staff, you make an appointment and then you go to these buildings and you get lost in these mazes. But it's really fascinating to see all these, like, you know, you might see Nancy Pelosi just walking down the hall or Schumer and people just doing their business. Well, each one of those buildings has a cafeteria, and each of those cafeterias, basically most of them, I think, like five out of six, have really good salad bars. So I always warn people, if you're on the hill, if you're at the Capitol or whatever, go into those buildings because they have really elaborate salad bars and they have sandwiches. Now that can change, and flips over a lot, but you can basically find some really good food in there. And they also have a ton of junk food and meats and everything. But you can always eat on Capitol Hill.
That's a good start at least. So you kind of alluded to the fact that the vegan food scene is a little bit bleak in DC at the moment, and hopefully that will improve over time. Are there any standout places, maybe they don't have 10, but maybe they have four. Do you have any [00:12:00] recommendations of great places that vegans should check out? You know, just something a bit special.
Absolutely. Elizabeth's is like one of my favorite restaurants in DC. It's fully vegan. It's been around, I think, for probably like eight or 10 years. The chef is always around when you go. It's very expensive. It's $110 per person. It's like a price fixed meal. Seasonal, the food, the caviar, like her vegan interpretation of things is just 'wow.' And then you can get a wine pairing. The restaurant itself is beautiful. To me, it looks like an English dining room. There's beautiful big portraits and it's in a row house. There's the mall, and then about a mile around the mall is very touristy. You go back a few more blocks and you have like somewhat normal neighborhoods, and Elizabeth's is around there. She's just off of the K Street. It is delicious. It is divine. I cannot recommend it enough. Then there is Oyster Oyster, which I would say, is my second favorite vegan restaurant. And that is a Michelin starred vegan restaurant. We have, yes, we have two Michelin [00:13:00] starred vegan restaurants in Washington DC, Mita and Oyster Oyster.
Michelin starred or just mentioned in the Michelin guide, because they're not always the same thing.
I should double check that. I will definitely double check that.
I don't mean
to contradict you there.
No, I'll definitely double check that because I feel like they put Michelin all over the place, but I didn't know there was a caveat difference.
Ah, yes, from what I know. Even if you're mentioned it in the Michelin guide, it's a big deal. Absolutely. Having one, two, or three Michelin stars is like the tiers. Obviously, three stars is the highest. And I think, isn't it 11 on Madison in New York, has the three star vegan Michelin restaurant, but that's also very expensive. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
So Oyster Oyster is weird. It's all mushroom. It means oyster mushroom, is what they're talking about in the oyster. However, the second oyster is really oysters, and the chef or owner, loves the Chesapeake Bay. I think they grew up near the Chesapeake Bay, which is, oysters is a big, huge deal both environmentally and food wise in the Chesapeake Bay. So [00:14:00] you can get the vegan menu which is all vegan, or you can get the vegetarian menu, which has some oysters. And some people in the vegan world debate whether or not eating oysters is vegan. I don't. I don't eat any animal products, so I don't eat oysters. But it's just an intriguing kind of history. It's a tiny restaurant, so you have to make reservations. Most of these places are only open like Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. I think sometimes on Sunday. You have to plan ahead, you know, because when I have friends that are vegan, come to DC, I'm always like, book your reservation now while you're even just thinking about it. Then plan your trip around that because they're so worth it. Oyster Oyster is $135 per person. It's a price fixed thing too. So the menus are very seasonal and they change, but they've always been outstanding. I will say this though, Oyster Oyster is really proud about saying that the tip is included, which in the US is a big deal because tipping is very expensive. So, yeah, I mean, and it's so confusing in DC right now. So standard is like 20%, but then there's this service fee and we're having these debates about service industry getting paid different levels. I mean, it is [00:15:00] crazy. DC is very confusing on the tipping scene, right? America can be confusing, but DC is particularly confusing.
I can't imagine it being more confusing. I remember hearing something about like, depending on sales, a server actually has to pay out the bus boys, and the other people in the restaurant as well. So if they don't get a tip, they can actually be out of pocket. And I'm just like, how is that possible? But yes, tipping in North America is very confusing. I'm not a fan.
Yeah, and DC, the city council, we keep voting to try to fix it, and I think things just get more complicated. So yeah, I'm not a fan either. Just put it in the price, make sure everybody has a livable wage and that they can raise a family. And why is this so complicated, you know? But Okay. And then the other one, the big other vegan one is Mita, which is also, I thought, Michelin star, but it might just be mentioned Michelin. I have not been there yet because again, tiny, and also you have to like, it's another Thursday, [00:16:00] friday, saturday night, you have to book months in advance or weeks. I mean, if you want to a popular thing. So the two or three times I've tried booking, I haven't been able to get in there, which, and I'm dying to try it. People say it's fantastic and it is the most expensive. It's 150, which is a lot of money. Food is really expensive in DC. It used to be, I think, not cheap, but it was, you could get really good food for affordable prices. And everything in the city has just been skyrocketing. I think it's the tariffs. It's just bad, and hard for restaurants. Restaurants don't make a lot of money, right? I mean, people work really hard in the restaurant industry.
Yeah, I was very interested because recently we were just in Vegas for friend's wedding, and I really felt that eating was really expensive compared with my last visit, or even compared with Canada, and normally Canada is more expensive. So I was chatting with some locals and I'm like, what's going on here? Is this like the tariffs? Is it all of the other factors. Food is more expensive, and to raise, or is it just Las Vegas trying to get more [00:17:00] money out of its visitors? And he's like, 'I don't know. But you are right. It is definitely more expensive than it was five years ago.' So maybe it's a theme that's throughout the US.
Yeah, and it's not just because, you know, as a vegan, people will sometimes say, well, vegan food's so expensive that I will like whip out. Like you could do this meal, and this meal, and this meal for about $5, and it's super healthy. I'm a very healthy eater. I know that there's a lot of vegan food that's processed and ultra processed, and I try to avoid that. And these restaurants that I'm listing, are really good food, healthy food. But also like McDonald's, just as a reference point in US. A burger, a Big Mac, is like eight or $9 now. And that used to be the cheapest. They are really expensive now. There's something definitely going on.
And also inflation as well.
Oh yeah. Yep, yep. Yep.
All of these factors. Yeah, for sure. It means you really have to be mindful about what meals you are going to get and what you want to splurge on. People would eat out a meal a day, two meals a day, when they were traveling in the past. I'm sure some people are making the decision to; maybe I'll just have a nice [00:18:00] meal once in my trip, for example. Yeah.
And I would say, none of the hotels, like I have friends come in all the time for work, business, you know, conferences, fun, and none of the hotels cater to vegans. And I feel like this big international city, we've kind of gone backwards. There used to be more like hippie granola, boutiquey hotels. They're either no longer in business or they have kind of gone the other direction. So there's always going to be, like maybe, a vegan option, like oatmeal or for breakfast, or there's going to be a Beyond Burger or Impossible or something. Make sure you have a refrigerator in your room and then go to one of these great places, or, and I'm going to go through some of the less expensive places you could bring something back to your room, and maybe eat it at lunch the next day during your conference. Now if you're having things catered in these hotels, getting a vegetarian or a vegan option. If you ask your organizer though, that's almost always available. But if you just go sit down in the restaurants, it's pretty shocking how backwards DC has kind of become.
Bummer. Bummer.
Yep.
Do you have any other places you would [00:19:00] like to recommend to our listeners?
We have PLANTA, is my like absolute go-to. Do you have those in Canada?
No, but as you say it, I feel like I've heard of it, and by the sounds of it, it is a chain, is that right?
Yep. Yep. So we have three in the DMV, so two in DC, one in DuPont Circle, one in just off of Georgetown, and then one in Bethesda. And those are all very touristy areas. And it's a hundred percent plant-based. Reasonable. You could bring your family, you know, if you're on vacation, you're exhausted and you want to go in and have a really good drink and some delicious food. Just all this traditional food, like Bang Bang Broccoli sandwiches, amazing Caesar salads, and it's, again, it's sort of affordable. It's like middle of the road. It's a nice restaurant. So that way, and I bring a lot of non-vegan in there because it's not going to blow them away with the super expensive, but they can try it. Oh, and DC Vegan. That's one of my favorite restaurants too. So if you come to DC you have to go. It used to be, here we go again with the money. It's like an Italian deli, but it has all kinds of delicious food. It's when I cater, when I have a party, and I [00:20:00] don't want to cook, I go there. I got all their sliders. I got a jackfruit slider. That's amazing. I get a bunch of salads, a ton of food, and it's pretty affordable. They used to have this Botanical Garden restaurant underneath them, which was much more fancy. You know how restaurants sometimes do that? They have like a really fancy, expensive, delicious, candlelight romantic, and then they have their deli place that does the catering and everything. So Botanical Garden closed a few months ago and it was devastating to me because I really love that place.
Yeah. That happens in Vancouver a lot too.
Yeah. I'm just going to mention that Jose Andre is kind of a famous chef. He goes out all over the world and does a lot of cooking in, you know, the Gaza Strip or after a hurricane or after things. And he is famous for like feeding people.
Oh, I think I've heard of him. Yes.
Yeah, he's a heroic, awesome human being, and he lives in Georgetown. I see him walking around sometimes when he is not out in the world saving people, and feeding people, and doing wonderful things. So he has three restaurants right in the touristy area of DC. Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, which is my favorite of his, it has a lot of vegan options. It's not a [00:21:00] vegan restaurant, but there's a lot. And the food is so delicious. And again, it's right off the mall. So if you're coming as a tourist and you want some delicious food, it's not that expensive. he has Zaytinya, which is a Mediterranean place. Again, it's right near the convention center in Gallery Place, which is a touristy area. That has a lot of vegan options. Not a vegan restaurant, but vegan options. And it's kind of a tapas thing. It's really a beautiful restaurant. And then there is Jaleo, which everyone loves, the tourists love, and they have very limited vegan options. I support the restaurant because I support Jose Andre, totally. You go through and you just pick, I want the lentils, I want the brussel sprouts, I want falafel, I want grilled vegetables. And so we have a lot like that. So that's one thing when people come to town. So we have like Shouk, which is totally vegan. They market themselves as Israeli street food. So good. We have Plnt Burger, which is in whole Foods and stuff. The chef or the cook's interpretation of a burger, which are fantastic. Shouk has won awards for their lentil burger. I just like that better than Impossible and Beyond. But I'm also happy that those exist, right? You can go out in the world and you can get something to eat, and it's [00:22:00] like junk, fun, junk food, right? And then we have CAVA, which I love. CAVA was just ranked as the most healthiest fast food restaurant in America. And it was started in DC. It's a chain, and it's gone all over, and it's got like really delicious food. We have Busboys and Poets, which has got a library. I think there's four or five now in the DMV and they have many vegan options, but not a vegan restaurant, but that's a really very DC type place. Yeah. We have Purple Patch, which is in Mount Pleasant, which is a Filipino restaurant, and it wins a lot of awards. It's, again, not vegan, but has delicious vegan options. That's locally owned and it's just fantastic. We have Baked by Yael . which is a bakery right across the street, and you can bring your own food in. They have vegan sandwiches. It's vegan corn beef sandwiches, vegan bagel or bagels, vegan bread, vegan cupcakes, not totally vegan. It has all the other stuff too. But you can always get something delicious at baked by Yael and it's local, and locally owned. You've been to DC right?
I have, I think for about three nights or something like that, and we just hit [00:23:00] all of the museums. It was totally amazing. Those museums are incredible. I think I got an Airbnb at that time. We're talking like 12 years ago or something now. So I think we did eat at some restaurants, and maybe make some packed lunches or something like that, so that we could enjoy the museums, which were amazing.
Yeah. DC's an intense city to vacation, and people don't come here to relax. It's almost like I saw 17 things in one day, and I'm going to do five more. And yeah, it's pretty crazy.
It's management, for sure.
Oh, absolutely. And there's always little kids that are so tired. And I grew up in Orlando, so I know tourism, there's always the little kids screaming and crying because you know, it was just too much for them. Even as a kid, I remember, I came to DC, and was a child. My parents brought us here, we sat in the Capitol, we watched, because there's a balcony where you can watch senators and house members debate and argue. It kind of inspired me.
Tell me what are the times to maybe consider your visit, to coincide with in DC, and what times of the year or [00:24:00] events are really good to avoid if people want to have a good experience?
Cherry blossom season is so famous and it's really beautiful, but it is congested and packed. So if you love crowds, that's great. If you don't like crowds, wait, you know, a week or two before or after, because that's still spring. The cherry blossoms tend to go in March now because of climate change. It used to be April, but there's events for like three weeks. So there's parades and there's like the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race. There's all these famous things, but again, every single thing is super congested. And if you're going to come, you have to book your hotels way in advance. Anything to do with inaugurations are like really congested too. You kind of got to watch the political calendar. I would say this, when the House and the Senate are gone, which is always in August, they take these very long vacations, like two weeks in, around between Easter and Passover. The whole month of August during election years, can run all the way up to November. And when they're gone, the city just kind of relaxes.
So there's more hotels available because there's less conferences because they're [00:25:00] not lobbying. As a DC resident, we love holidays, 4th of July, Labor Day, because all the tourists are downtown. The tourists come in. But DC is a town that leaves. People go home at Christmas, meaning wherever they came from. People go home at Thanksgiving. You can get reservations in your favorite restaurant. You could park, you know. It's one of those things where I'm like, I will visit friends and relatives on off things. But as a tourist, yeah, it's good to track the political calendar as well. DC is really hot in August, but again, if you're coming just to do the museums, it's, well, you've got the school kids out. And there's whole classrooms, whole buses get loaded, and there's like hundreds of kids going into the Air and Space Museum. It's just a little bit different than most seasonal things.
Got it. Got it. And how do people get around DC. I believe that there is like a metro service in DC, and is it easy to navigate, safe, buses? How do they work, et cetera?
Yeah, the metro is very easy. I mean, there's red at Smithsonian. There's like a [00:26:00] loop of orange, a loop of red. You get a map, you study it for a little bit. It's very easy. I would say, one thing though, it's also the main form of transportation for DC residents. So rush hour, if you're going to be on the metro between eight 30 and nine 30, that's not a time to be like trying to figure out how things work. And between five and six or whatever. But once you get the flow of it, and people are so used to tons of tourists, that it's fine. We all get along. It's pretty affordable, safe. We've had times where it was not safe. Right now, I would say it is safe. In DC I feel like they've very safe and pretty easy to figure out. It's like any city, like London. It's way better than trying to drive, and you can get through things really fast.
We've covered sites to see. What are some ways that people may experience like the local culture, theater and live music scene, in DC because I'm sure it must be very lively?
Yeah, we have a fantastic music scene. We have some of the greatest venues, I think, in the world. Definitely in the United States. The 9:30 Club is totally famous. Merriweather [00:27:00] Post Pavilion, which is a little bit out in the burbs, but it's one of the ones where you can sit under a pavilion or up in a grassy knoll hill. We have the Capital One arena. We have the baseball stadium, so we get all the big shows. I mean, anyone mostly who's touring is going to come to DC at some point. We also have the Kennedy Center, which is fantastic, or at least was until Trump took it over and now he's going to rename it. Anyway, it's like historical. It's a beautiful building and it gets everything, anything that's on Broadway at some point, pretty quickly comes through DC. If you love musicals, I love musicals, plays. We have other theater venues. We have the famous Shakespeare Theater, which is running always different interpretations of Shakespeare plays. We even have the E Street synagogue, which we're going to see Billy Idol there next week. So there's a tiny little synagogue that's got this amazing sound system that, you know, it's also authors come and famous people, but they do these acoustic music scene things, which are spectacular. Constant is an amazing music scene [00:28:00] and theater and plays, and it's everything from the woolly mammoth, which has got the more modern, you know, and then you've got the Kennedy Center, which is the more like traditional. And also, the Kennedy Center almost always has, not always, at least three days a week or so, has free orchestra music, and they'll put it to Star Wars or they'll do famous things, and then they have like lots of kids in there. We have the National Cathedral. That's got religious music, famous opera singers, Italian Renaissance music. And I have a friend who works up there, so she's always saying, 'You gotta come up and see this.' Almost all of our music venues don't serve vegan food. They finally modernized using reusable cups because a lot of people drink beer or wine or whatever. We have hockey, we have basketball. We have football and we have baseball. So that's another thing with tourists. If you're watching, if you like the sportsy scene, then if you want to stay in Chinatown, which is where the basketball plays and the Cap center is, which is where hockey is, just be aware of that because when there's something big going on or there's like a championship. The whole place gets flooded with people. The baseball [00:29:00] stadium is very beautiful. It's near the water. There's a lot of hotels out there, but again, if baseball season's going strong, you might want to monitor what's happening. So there's always something happening in DC.
And is there a place, like a one-stop shop, where you can see all of these amazing opportunities? I don't know an online site, like what's happening, dc.com or something like that. Sometimes it's hard to know what's out there. If you don't know what's available and what the venues are, it's hard to know what to Google.
It really is. And I wish that they had something more concise. Everyone seems like they have their own track of how they do things. I mean, it's super frustrating. Like I'll have friends in town and we'll go to the Smithsonian and there'll be some amazing show of some fantastic, you know, architect of the building museum that I don't know about till I get there. And I read the newspaper, our newspapers, the Washington Post, also covers a lot of local stuff. So I feel like I know more than a lot of people, but I'm also stunned by things that are happening sometimes. And I'll say too, we have a pretty active vegan [00:30:00] society of DC. And they do have a website. So they have events where you can go to like Poplar Springs, which is an animal sanctuary. So if you want to see other things in DC that are a little bit more like vegan-friendly, they do bike rides through DC and then they have a vegan potluck, or they all go to vegan restaurants. So if you're a vegan in DC, you could check out their calendar.
Right. I love it.
Yes.
So CK, I want to thank you so much for coming and being on the show, recording on a Sunday. That's so kind of you. I would love to know, where is your next trip that you have planned?
Oh, I have nephews getting married in October in Seattle. I have a nephew getting married in North Carolina, so I'm kind of family focused in the US. And I will say, I've been to all 50 states, so I love exploring the United States, and whenever we go anywhere, we add on a national park or something fun. But outside the United States, nothing. I'm kind of rating on Rwanda.
Ah, fabulous. Amazing
If things
ever get [00:31:00] sorted out in that country, I can't wait to go to the gorillas.
I
have to tell you that the travel warning has decreased, so it's looking better. We've just, it's on the to-do list. It's on the to-do list, if you are interested in joining World Vegan Travel.
Would love that. Yes.
Amazing. So please, tell us again, your website, and how people can connect with you. Maybe read some of your books that you've written?
Sure. My website is www.ck westbrook.com and from there you have all my books and the descriptions. You can also sign up for my newsletter, which you know, has when the next books are coming out. That comes out once a month. And then I'm on all the socials. I'm on TikTok, and Instagram, and Facebook, and Blue Sky, and it's all CK Westbrook or Westbrook CK. But if you plug it in, it always comes up, and the books are available everywhere you buy books in every format, and yeah, I'd love it if people checked it out.
Thank you so much.