Bethesda
Bethesda is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States.
Bethesda is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region and a national center for medical research. According to the 2020 census, the community had a population of 68,056.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Bethesda
10 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01National Center for Biotechnology Information
The National Center for Biotechnology Information is part of the National Library of Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. It is approved and funded by the government of the United States.
1.7 km · database arm of the US National Library of Medicine · Wikipedia - 02United States National Library of Medicine
The United States National Library of Medicine, operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health.
1.7 km · medical library operated by the U.S. federal government · Wikipedia - 03American University
The American University is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90 acres on Ward Circle, in the Spring Valley and Tenleytown neighborhoods of Northwest D.C. American was chartered by an Act of Congress in 1893 at the urging of Methodist bishop John Fletcher Hurst, who sought to create an institution that promoted public service, internationalism, and pragmatic idealism.
5.8 km · private liberal arts and research-based university in Washington, D.C., USA · Wikipedia - 04Kryptos
Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four encrypted messages it bears.
4.6 km · encrypted sculpture by American artist Jim Sanborn · Wikipedia - 05National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.
2.5 km · US research institute for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases · Wikipedia - 06Washington D.C. Temple
The Washington D.C. Temple is the 16th operating temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Located in Kensington, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., and the Capital Beltway, it became the church's first temple east of the Mississippi River since the original Nauvoo Temple, completed in 1846.
5.3 km · temple of the LDS church · Wikipedia - 07National Museum of Health and Medicine
The National Museum of Health and Medicine is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum in 1862; it became the NMHM in 1989 and relocated to its present site at the Army's Forest Glen Annex in 2012. An element of the Defense Health Agency, the NMHM is a member of the National Health Sciences Consortium.
5.8 km · museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States · Wikipedia - 08Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences is a health science university and professional school of the U.S. federal government. The primary mission of the school is to prepare graduates for service to the U.S. at home and abroad as uniformed health professionals, scientists and leaders; by conducting cutting-edge, military-relevant research; by leading the Military Health System in key functional and intellectual areas; and by providing operational support to units around the world.
3 km · health science university of the United States federal government · Wikipedia - 09CIA Memorial Wall
The Memorial Wall is a memorial at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. The wall is located in the Original Headquarters Building lobby on the north wall.
4.7 km · memorial to CIA employees · Wikipedia - 10Peter Muhlenberg Memorial
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, commonly known as the Peter Muhlenberg Memorial, is a public monument in Washington, D.C. It honors Peter Muhlenberg, a Lutheran minister, Continental Army general, Federalist Era American politician, and member of the prominent Muhlenberg family. The memorial is located in a one-acre park bounded by Connecticut Avenue, Ellicott Street, and 36th Street NW on the eastern edge of Washington's Wakefield neighborhood.
5.1 km · sculpture by Caroline M. Hufford and John Harbeson in Washington, DC, USA · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Getting to Bethesda
- Airports
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA), 16 km · Washington Dulles (IAD), 30 km · Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI), 44 km
- Stations
- Grosvenor–Strathmore, 5 km · Medical Center, 2.1 km · Friendship Heights, 3.6 km · Tenleytown–AU, 5 km
- Baltimore → Bethesda54 km · quickest by road, 1h 18m · $5–7
- Richmond → Bethesda162 km · quickest by road, 2h 55m · $15–20
- Philadelphia → Bethesda198 km · quickest by road, 3h 41m · $18–24
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Bethesda
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Bethesda. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inOn the weekends, you can take Ride On bus #29 to Glen Echo and start hiking north from there, but it is a significantly longer trek to Great Falls.
- Get inAlthough it is also possible to kayak or canoe the Potomac through the park, make sure you know what you're doing—the rapids are very dangerous, especially around Great Falls, and many people drown every year.
- Go nextAmong the most important are Harpers Ferry, just across the Potomac in West Virginia, and Antietam National Battlefield.
From Wikivoyage: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
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If you know how people move in Bethesda – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Bethesda
Bethesda is 12 km from Washington, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.
- Glen Echotown in Maryland, United States, suburb of Washington, DC3.1 km
- Spring Valleyneighborhood in Washington, D.C.5.2 km
- Tenleytownneighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C.5.2 km
- Forest Glen Parkneighborhood in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States5.5 km