The Best Weekend Trips from Richmond: A Shakespeare Town, a Shenandoah College Town, and a Bay-Side Victorian Beach

The best weekend trips from Richmond are Staunton (1 hour 50 minutes, a Shenandoah Valley town with a replica of Shakespeare's indoor theatre), Lexington (2 hours, a college town under the Blue Ridge with Natural Bridge 15 minutes away), and Cape Charles (2 hours 45 minutes, a Victorian beach town on the Chesapeake Bay side of the Eastern Shore). One is for theatre, one is for mountains, and one is for the beach.

Staunton: the Shakespeare town

Staunton's centrepiece is Blackfriars Playhouse, the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre, where the American Shakespeare Center stages the canon year round with the house lights on and the audience in it. Around it is a dense historic district of brick and iron storefronts climbing steep streets, plus the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in the house where Wilson was born in 1856.

The 48 hours. Saturday: a matinee at Blackfriars, then Beverley Street for the shops and lunch, the Wilson library in the afternoon, dinner at Zynodoa. Sunday: coffee downtown, a walk through Gypsy Hill Park, and the drive back over the valley.

Lexington: the college town under the Blue Ridge

Lexington is small, old, and built around two institutions: Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute, whose museums and parade ground are open to visitors. Main Street is one of the best-preserved in the Valley, with historic inns, a bookshop, and restaurants in buildings that have been serving students since before the Civil War.

Fifteen minutes south, Natural Bridge State Park protects a 215-foot limestone arch on Cedar Creek that Thomas Jefferson once owned, with a trail running beneath it and a Monacan Indian village reconstruction at the trailhead.

The 48 hours. Saturday: Main Street, the VMI Museum, lunch, then Natural Bridge in the afternoon and dinner back in town. Sunday: a hike on the Chessie Nature Trail along the Maury River, brunch, and the drive home.

Cape Charles: the bay-side Victorian beach

Cape Charles sits on the Chesapeake Bay side of the Eastern Shore, at the western end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, and it is the closest actual beach town to Richmond at about 2 hours 45 minutes. The historic district is blocks of Victorian houses around a public beach on the bay, where the water is calm and shallow and the sun sets over it.

Kiptopeke State Park, 10 minutes north, has a fishing pier made from the concrete hulls of WWII ships, a swimming beach, and one of the best hawk migration sites on the East Coast each September.

The 48 hours. Saturday: the beach in the morning, the historic district walk and the shops in the afternoon, dinner at the Shanty. Sunday: Kiptopeke for the pier and the trails, then Brown Dog Ice Cream before the bridge-tunnel. Spring and fall are the sweet spots, since summer weekends book out and the bay is at its warmest in September.

Which one should you pick?

Theatre and a dense historic downtown: Staunton. Mountains, history, and a college-town main street: Lexington. Sand and sunset over the bay: Cape Charles. Full itineraries are in the Richmond escapes hub, with guides to Staunton, Lexington, and Cape Charles.