George Washington House

In 1751 a nineteen-year-old George Washington sailed to Barbados with his half-brother Lawrence, who had tuberculosis and had been advised the climate would help; it did not, and Lawrence died within the year. It was the only journey outside what became the United States that Washington ever made, and while here he caught smallpox, which left him immune during the epidemics of the later war, a fact historians have found worth dwelling on. The house they rented has been restored and furnished to the period, with a museum below covering the visit, the island's role in Atlantic trade, and access to the Garrison tunnels.

What you actually see

• The restored house - furnished as it would have been in 1751.
• The smallpox episode - and the immunity it later gave him.
• The tunnel entrance - access to the Garrison passages from here.
• The trade galleries - Barbados in the eighteenth-century Atlantic economy.

When to go

Year-round, weekdays with limited weekend hours. Tunnel tours run at set times from here and should be booked. Two hours covers the house, museum and tunnel together.

Honest expectations

The house is small and the connection is a two-month stay by a teenager, so the significance is thinner than the name suggests; the museum around it does more work. Hours are limited. The tunnels, which many visitors come for, run on a timed schedule and sell out.

Nearby

The Garrison savannah and museum are minutes away; Bridgetown is fifteen minutes.