United States · Virginia
Where to Stay in Reston, Virginia
Reston is a Fairfax County community founded in 1964, standing about twenty miles west of Washington among the older mills and meetinghouses of Virginia.
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Where to stay in Reston
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Reston works as a base. A room here puts the Washington metropolitan area within a commute and the older parts of Fairfax County within a short drive, which is the trade most visitors are actually making when they book out here. The lake side suits families.
Lake Fairfax Park and NOVA Wild are the open-ground attractions nearest Reston, and beds within reach of them turn a stay into something built around parkland rather than a downtown. Museum trips point away from the lake. The Udvar-Hazy Center and the National Firearms Museum are the two collections that bring people out to this part of Fairfax County, and a car matters more than a street address for reaching either.
Old ground lies between them. Colvin Run Mill, the Frying Pan Meetinghouse, Merrybrook and the John Gunnell House are the surviving pieces of the county Reston was built into, and reaching them fills an afternoon without leaving the area. One corner sits further out.
Matildaville, the Great Falls Tavern and the William Gunnell House belong to the Great Falls side of the county, and a stay in Reston reaches all three without much of a drive.
About Reston
Reston is young by Virginia standards.
What is Reston known for?
The place dates from 1964, and what surrounds it is a great deal older, from Colvin Run Mill and the Frying Pan Meetinghouse to the John Gunnell House that stood in Fairfax County long before. Aviation draws the crowds. The Udvar-Hazy Center stands within reach on the same stretch of Fairfax County, and Lake Fairfax Park and NOVA Wild take up most of what families do around Reston.
What are the main landmarks in Reston?
Two eras share the list. The Udvar-Hazy Center and the National Firearms Museum belong to the modern county, while Colvin Run Mill, the Frying Pan Meetinghouse, the John Gunnell House and Merrybrook date from the Fairfax County that came before Reston. Churches and clubs fill in.
McLean Bible Church, the Church of the Epiphany and the International Tennis Club of Washington round out the local list, and The River of Blood and Bois Doré are the odder names on it.
What is the history of Reston?
The county came long before the town. Frying Pan Meetinghouse, Colvin Run Mill and the John Gunnell House record a farming Fairfax County of mills, meeting houses and family holdings, and Matildaville was a settlement on the Great Falls side of the same country. Houses outlasted the farms.
Merrybrook, Bois Doré and the William Gunnell House survive from that period, and the Great Falls Tavern belongs to the same run of standing buildings. Reston itself begins in 1964. The community was established that year in Fairfax County, and it grew into one of the principal places of the Washington metropolitan area without ever becoming an incorporated city of its own.
Its standing is unusual. Reston is counted as a census-designated place rather than a town with a charter, which is why the older names around it, Colvin Run Mill and Frying Pan Meetinghouse among them, carry the county's documented past instead. Flight arrived last.
The Udvar-Hazy Center and the National Firearms Museum belong to the newest layer of Fairfax County, and NOVA Wild and Lake Fairfax Park mark how much of the ground around Reston stayed open.
Where is Reston?
Reston lies well back from the coast. The community occupies a patch of Fairfax County about twenty miles west of Washington, on the rolling ground between the capital and the older river country at Great Falls. Water is the local feature.
Lake Fairfax Park holds the largest of it, and the ground around Reston stays wooded and open in a way the built-up parts of the Washington metropolitan area do not.
What is the climate of Reston?
Distance from the coast tells. Reston sits inland of Washington in the temperate band, far enough from open water that summer heat settles over Fairfax County and winter arrives without much to soften it. Trees change the feel.
The wooded ground around Lake Fairfax Park keeps the worst of the summer off, which is why so much of what people do around Reston in the hot months happens under the cover of the parks.
How do you get to Reston?
Washington sets the approach. Reston lies about twenty miles west of the capital, and almost everyone arriving comes out from the Washington metropolitan area rather than in from the Virginia countryside. A car does the rest.
The Udvar-Hazy Center, Colvin Run Mill and Lake Fairfax Park are spread across Fairfax County rather than gathered at one stop, so time here is measured in short drives. Matildaville lies further out.
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Updated August 2026