Things to do in Richmond

Nature · Along both banks of the James, from Huguenot Flatwoods to Ancarrow's Landing

Six hundred acres of riverside park through the middle of the city, with class III and IV whitewater running past downtown — Richmond is on the fall line, and the rapids are the reason the city is here.

Local tip: Belle Isle, reached by a suspended footbridge under the Lee Bridge, is the introduction; Pony Pasture is where locals actually swim and sunbathe; the North Bank and Buttermilk trails are the mountain biking. Rafting the downtown section past the skyline is the thing to do with visitors. Check the river gauge before you get in — this is a real river, not a water feature.

Culture · Museum District, Boulevard at Grove Avenue

One of the largest comprehensive art museums in the United States, with an outstanding Fabergé collection, strong African and South Asian galleries, and general admission that is free, every day of the year.

Local tip: Free and open 365 days is genuinely unusual for a museum this size, which makes it a default Richmond move — an hour before dinner rather than a whole planned outing. The sculpture garden is a lunch spot. Special exhibitions are ticketed; the permanent collection never is.

Neighborhood · North of Broad Street, downtown

The historic centre of Black business and culture in Richmond — once called the Harlem of the South and the Black Wall Street of the South — where Maggie L. Walker became the first Black woman in America to charter a bank.

Local tip: Her house on East Leigh Street is a National Park Service site and is free to visit; go, and take the ranger talk. The neighbourhood was cut in half by the construction of I-95 in the 1950s, which is visible from any corner and is not incidental history. The Hippodrome on Second Street still runs shows.

Neighborhood · East of downtown, above Shockoe Bottom

The oldest part of the city, on the bluff where Patrick Henry said 'give me liberty or give me death' at St John's Church — now brick row houses, long views over the river and downtown, and a run of very good restaurants.

Local tip: Libby Hill Park's view is said to have given Richmond its name, after a similar view of the Thames at Richmond in England. The restaurant cluster around 25th and Broad punches far above the neighbourhood's size. Walk down the hill to Shockoe Bottom rather than driving; the hill is the point.

Neighborhood · North-west of the Fan, between Broad Street and the interstate

A former industrial district of warehouses and light manufacturing that has become the city's densest concentration of breweries, cideries, meaderies and distilleries, with apartments filling the buildings between them.

Local tip: It is the fastest-changing neighbourhood in Richmond and the one most likely to feel like a construction site. Walkable in the sense that everything is a few blocks apart, less so in the sense of pavements and shade. Best on a Saturday afternoon; genuinely loud on a Saturday night, which matters if you are renting here.

Culture · Oregon Hill, on the bluff above the James

An 1849 garden cemetery on the hills above the rapids, holding two US presidents, a maze of Victorian monuments and the best free view of the river in the city.

Local tip: Richmonders run and walk here and it is entirely normal to do so. Go in the late afternoon and follow the road to the river-facing edge above the rapids — the noise of the water comes up through the trees. The city's history is legible in the stones in ways a museum cannot arrange.