Town of Colonial Beach

While staying nearby we came here to walk and check out some local shops. We found nothing interesting at all. Everything seemed to be closed including the visitor center. Never coming back.

So you can review a whole town, interesting.
Pros:
The beach /​river area was nice and lovely. I spent 4 – 5 hours there easily.
The food truck food tasted good and it was cheap.
We found free municipal parking close to the beach.
Cons:
The stores all seemed to be antiques /​consignments. Which was, interesting.
No locks on any of the bathrooms. What?
The restaurant we ate at (High Tides) sucked.
The museum was only open from 1 – 4 pm and it was $ 6 to get in. It was tiny.
A lot of the stores seemed to open late and close early, so we did not get a chance to go in them.

For a quaint area to get away from the city vibe while still in the DC area, try Colonial Beach. It’s a trip back in time.

Don’t go there the food takes forever to make and when I got mine it was the worst thing my family and I every tried

My boyfriend and I went to Colonial Beach for a 2 day getaway, we absolutely loved it. It’s a perfect quiet little town with a laid back attitude. There’s no nightlife but we weren’t hoping for that anyway. We stayed in the most perfect Bed and Breakfast «The Potomac Breeze.» Our innkeeper Don was friendly and accommodating and his breakfasts were out of this world (homemade quiche)! We were happy that he also has a golf cart for rent because cursing around in the cart is one of the most popular things to do in town. The place even has signs posted to remind motorists to share the road. Not much was open on a Monday in town but if you’re up for a short 20 minute drive you can find Ingleside Winery (highly recommend the Blue Crab Blanc). I would recommend skipping Oak Crest winery however, the wines were very sweet and seemingly low quality. The Tiki Bar at Dockside was really fun and the food (Texas Shrimp) and drinks (Bloody Mary) were really good. For a nicer dinner in town we were directed to Lighthouse it’s a Thai and French Restaurant. Not something you see every day! It was seemingly having an identity crisis but the food was well prepared and our service was wonderful. We did feel a bit overdressed wearing a nicer sundress and slacks and a button down since the other diners were in T Shirts and flip flops. All in all a very charming place to go for a short summer getaway with kids or a significant other. We will be back!

Colonial Beach is a nice, small town on the Potomac River. It has a small beach. The beach is not sandy like at a beach beach, but kind of rocky and coarse, but it’s a beautiful scene. The water is not rough and I really like taking a tube and just floating around for hours in the summertime. There are a few businesses on the short «boardwalk» area, like a beach shop and restaurant. There is a bar next to a place of condos or a hotel, and a band starting playing around 4:00 in the afternoon.
Last year when I went to Colonial Beach, there were public bathrooms and an outside faucet for feet and a taller one for rinsing. This year, they must be short on money or something because the bathrooms were padlocked closed, even though it was a holiday weekend and a lot of people were there. Instead, they had a long line of port-​a-​potties. There is street parking and a larger lot close to the casino. You have to pay to park there. There is a sign directing you to a kiosk and you put the money in there and get back a dated and timed slip that you display in your front window.
The town itself is tiny but quaint and beautiful. It’s nice for a day trip, my only issue is that I wish they had open public facilities. Port-​a-​potties without any toilet paper supplied is disgusting.

If you’re looking for a place to go for a rowdy spring break, don’t go to Colonial Beach. But if you’re looking for a quiet and quaint getaway with family or significant other, CB is the place to go.
CB has had it’s heyday, but there’s still much to offer — a small, quiet, nowhere near crowded beach with a boardwalk along the Potomac River, bed and breakfasts, quaint shops and really friendly people. They have gambling, art, boats for charter… the Potomac River Festival gets all of the locals out along Washington Street to watch the firetruck parade. It’s quite a loud spectacle, and there’s the Miss Colonial Beach pageant and carnival that follows.
Lovely little spot for a quiet getaway.

Absolutely love this little, tiny, small town. Haven’t gone into any of the local businesses or restaurants (yet), but certainly will in the future. I’ve never found the beach front to be swamped with people, never seen not even one speck of trash. The waves here are outstanding — small enough for you to sit waist deep in and not get knocked over. Love, love, LOVE CB!!!

Me & my friend took her dog to walk on the beach at Colonial.
It was 55 degrees on this MLK Day, wow and we saw some sun.
It’s a sleepy town in January but you get the sense that in season the place really hums. There are several beach side bars & restaurants as well as small beach that has some wading pools.
There is a small pier for fishing and a boardwalk.
Don’t expect much in the off season though, most everything is closed.
We were told by a local that if we wanted good seafood, go across the river to Cobb Island, we did and she was right!

Pretty boring place to go off season. Can’t honestly attest to going during season as today was my first time. We saw all we needed to see in about three hours — A pretty big waste of time considering our travel time was a four hour round trip drive.
Apparently 50% of the town closes down after labor day. This certainly would have been something that would have been very beneficial for the Colonial Beach website to mention prior to us trekking out for it. Not even the town trolley operates after September 2^nd, and worse, the locals don’t even seem to know this. We stood on the corner of Dockside Restaurant after being told by the staff inside about the trolley, only to find out by another person twenty minutes later that it wasn’t running again until next year.
The most fun we had out of the day was just tooling around the various streets in our rented golf cart. But, when it had become apparent that we had seen all there was to see, things got boring fast.
Truth be told, I’m not even sure this place would be all that much of a blast during the beach season as there isn’t really all that much beach to be shared by people. In total there were maybe twenty parking spaces along the actual beach (with parking meters), and a little further down the road was a small lot with probably another twenty spots (at a cost of five bucks for the day).
I don’t think we would personally rush back to Colonial Beach. Come to think of it, I don’t think we’d go back at gun point either. I like how the one reviewer said that it was a very clean town — Yeah, most places that have signs that say, $ 2,500.00 (that’s not a typo) fine for littering would be clean.

We like Colonial Beach. Small town. Everyone is friendly. The town and beach area are very clean. Lots of excellent places to eat.

Colonial beach was a fun day trip. It’s a nice little town with some good local food and shops. The view of the river is beautifull. I look forward to going back and doing some fishing. (pier is free)

Colonial Beach is a quiet pretty little town you can reach by car or boat. Very near the birthplace of both George Washington and James Monroe it is a beautiful place to go for a weekend, day trip, lunch break or vacation home. There are wineries near by (very friendly and dog friendly) and boating amenities to your hearts delight.
Charming!

A quaint, sleepy town of 3000 (in the winter) where everyone knows everyone. Has a few decent bed and breakfasts and a great Thai-​French restaurant. Good for a quick getaway from the hubbub of Washington for a tranquil, history-​filled retreat.
Do not miss Stratford Hall Plantation — Robert E. Lee’s birthplace.

We’re full-​time residents in Alexandria, in our 30s, and wanted to buy a place near the water that we could head off to for the weekends to relax that wasn’t going to cost us a million bucks.
After wandering around the whole Bay area – up and down peninsulas and «Rivahs» of VA, crossing the Bay Bridge to Eastern Shore of Maryland, and chasing down ponies on the eastern shore of VA, we experienced continuous sticker shock, drive time burn out, and were about to give up until one day driving home to my parents in Richmond I decided to take a detour around the traffic congestion of I95. It was along 301, crossing the Harry Nice Bridge into Virginia that I remembered Colonial Beach… I place that we day tripped to a few times in my childhood.
The town is quaint… everyone knows everyone. But it also has history. It was a resort town more than 100 years ago. In it’s heyday of the 50s, it was a bustling beach town with several gambling houses built out over the Potomac – Maryland waters, and legalized gambling.
While the town turn a turn for the worse after those wild years, the charm never left. In recent years, the town has been rediscovered and is once again becoming a destination for vacationers. This has been evidenced with the opening of antique shops, a gourmet coffee shop, and a handful of restaurants. The nearest golf course is more than 12 miles away, but you can swing a dead fish without hitting one of the many golf carts locals choose to use for travel around the town. No cart? Don’t worry, it’s a great town to bike or walk around around too.
If you’re one accustomed to Caribbean white sand beaches, the beach at Colonial Beach will be a bit disappointing. Compared to anything else in around the Bay, the beach is fine. I’m sure the lack of waves eases the fears of parents of small children swimming here.
The real draw is boating. Monroe Bay, on the backside of town, boasts five marinas and a free public boat launch. It’s a great spot to set off on a sail trip, a fishing excursion, or just a lazy afternoon paddle. Speaking of marinas, they’re all quite reasonably priced, and to sweeten the deal, the town charges no boat tax.
Check out CB… perhaps you’ll like it as much as we did.