Richmond is a city that has had to reckon more honestly with its history than most, and the reckoning is visible. The former capital of the Confederacy, an industrial city built in part on enslaved labour, now has a statue-free Monument Avenue (the Confederate statues were removed in 2020) and some of the most engaged public history interpretation in the South. It also has one of the better craft beer and restaurant scenes on the East Coast, a restored riverfront on the James, and a pleasant, unassuming scale that makes it easy to spend a couple of days.
We rode into Richmond on our bikes in the last few days of a ride across the USA. We were bound for Yorktown and, after 70 days on the road, were desperate to complete the journey. We stayed on the North West side of the city and then on the next night near the airport on the South East side. It took us a whole day to ride through it.
A Little Background
The area was home to the Powhatan Confederacy when English colonists arrived in the early seventeenth century. Richmond was established as a town in 1737 at the falls of the James River, the furthest navigable point upstream — a location that made it a natural trading and then industrial centre. Tobacco warehouses and iron foundries gave the city its economic character in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Richmond became the capital of the Confederate States of America in 1861, a decision that made it the primary target of the Union Army for four years and shaped its history permanently. The city was burned in part by Confederate forces themselves as they evacuated in April 1865, and the fall of Richmond effectively ended the Civil War. The subsequent century — Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Lost Cause mythology built around Monument Avenue — is a history the city has been slowly and publicly working through.
The Richmond Slave Trail and the recent development of the Lumpkin’s Jail site have made the history of the domestic slave trade, for which Richmond was the primary commercial centre in the United States, considerably more visible than it was a decade ago.
What to See and Do
The American Civil War Museum on the former Tredegar Iron Works site — where Confederate cannon were manufactured — is the most balanced and serious Civil War museum in the country, presenting the perspectives of Union soldiers, Confederate soldiers, and enslaved people simultaneously. The museum occupies restored industrial buildings on the James River canal; the exterior alone is worth visiting. Adult approximately US$14.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Boulevard is one of the strongest regional art museums in the United States — a large encyclopedic collection with particular strengths in Art Nouveau and Art Deco decorative arts, ancient art, and South Asian sculpture. Free admission (special exhibitions extra). Allow two to three hours.
Monument Avenue is now a tree-lined boulevard of Beaux-Arts mansions from which the five Confederate statues have been removed, leaving plinths (some retained, some removed) and a public art conversation still in progress. The Arthur Ashe Monument, installed in 1996, remains. Walking the avenue is a way of reading the city’s changing relationship to its own history.
The James River Park System runs along both banks of the James through the city — 550 acres of riverfront parks, rapids, trails, and swimming holes within the city limits. The Belle Isle island in the middle of the river (reached by a pedestrian bridge from the south bank) has swimming rocks, a Civil War prison camp site, and mountain biking trails. Free.
The Poe Museum on East Main Street occupies the oldest house in Richmond (built around 1737) and is dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe, who grew up in the city. Poe did not live in this particular building — he lived in several houses around Richmond that no longer exist — but the museum’s collection of manuscripts, letters, and personal effects is extensive. Adult approximately US$8.
The Church Hill neighbourhood east of downtown is the oldest residential district in the city — a hill of nineteenth-century townhouses around St John’s Church, where Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in 1775. The church is open for tours; adult approximately US$10.
Carytown is Richmond’s independent shopping and restaurant strip — about a kilometre of independent shops, wine bars, Vietnamese restaurants, and cafés along West Cary Street. The best option for a leisurely afternoon lunch or an evening out.
Getting There
Richmond International Airport (RIC) is 16 kilometres east of downtown; taxis and rideshares to the city centre cost approximately US$25–35. Amtrak’s Northeast Regional stops at Main Street Station (a restored 1901 Beaux-Arts building worth seeing in itself) on routes between New York and the South. Washington DC is approximately 2 hours by train; New York approximately 4.5 hours.
Cost and Hours
Richmond is one of the more affordable East Coast cities for visitors. Mid-range hotels in the Fan District or downtown run US$130–200 per night. Most major attractions cost under US$15. Allow two days; three if you want to spend time on the river and explore the neighbourhoods properly.