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Travel Tip: A place you don't want to miss

Next time you're in Virginia, The Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs is one property you certainly don't want to miss. The charming property encompasses 2,300 acres with 483 guestrooms that boast elegant fabrics and furnishings, a slew of fine restaurants, an award-winning spa, a full-service fitness center, and more.

It boasts over 45 acres of activities, including two hot springs. Guests take to the slopes for snowboarding and skiing in the winter and enjoy world-class golf, tennis, and horseback riding in the summer.

But the main draw has to be the property's rich history.

Ten years before the country was founded, The Homestead opened as an 18-room lodge in the mountains. George Washington awarded a land grant to Thomas Bullitt on which the first hotel was built. In 1818, Thomas Jefferson spent three weeks here, and, since then, over 20 other presidents have been guests at this lovely resort, from Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush.

For more than 100 years, the resort has hosted events and meetings for guests from around the world. In 1908, President William Howard Taft joined the Virginia Bar Association meeting and in 1943, an international conference focused on tackling the world’s food shortages was held here as a trial run for the creation of the United Nations.

From December 1941 until June 1942, following the United States' entry into World War II, The Homestead also served as a high-end internment camp for 785 Japanese diplomats and their families -- a dark chapter in the resort's otherwise splendid history, to be sure.

A member of Historic Hotels of America, The Omni Homestead Resort was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991.

The property's stellar amenities and venerable history speak for themselves.

Would you stay here if you were to visit Virginia?

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