Today on American Nomad, we’re continuing our Virginia adventures with a stop in the iconic community of Yorktown. This charming city, overlooking the York River, played witness to one of the most pivotal moments in American history. Imagine yourself back in October 1781, when General Washington’s Continental Army, alongside their French allies, achieved a decisive victory over General Lord Cornwallis and the British forces in the momentous Battle of Yorktown.
Yorktown truly stands as a must-visit pilgrimage site for every American. It was here that victory was secured and our nation’s independence was fully realized. Without Yorktown, the path to American triumph remains an unknown variable. The convergence of events leading to this victory was so extraordinary, it has been described by some historians as nothing short of miraculous.
Located just twenty-five minutes from Williamsburg via the scenic Colonial Parkway, Yorktown overlooks the York River as it gracefully makes its way to the Chesapeake Bay. What truly makes Yorktown so captivating is its historic charm. Many of its buildings date back to the Colonial period, while others bore witness to pivotal moments from the Civil War right up to the present day. As you meander through Yorktown’s historic streets, which straddle the hills overlooking the riverfront, you can practically feel the history come to life. You’ll also experience genuine small-town hospitality as locals greet you with a friendly “hello” and a smile. Many visitors initially come to Yorktown for the historic Battlefield, but they inevitably stay for the undeniable charm and welcoming amenities the community has to offer. Think delicious restaurants overlooking the York River, eclectic local shops, sipping coffee in buildings where Lafayette and Washington once stood, and easy access to the riverfront beach.
Today we’re going to take a tour of Yorktown highlights from The Revolutionary War to modern adventure.
I recommend starting off your Yorktown adventure with a visit to the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. I recommend starting here instead of the Battlefield itself, because this museum provides a comprehensive history of The American Revolution from the early discontent with the Stamp Act of 1765 to the first shots fired a Lexington and Concord (Massachusetts) on April 19 1775, to the Gunpowder Incident in Williamsburg on April 21 1775 to The Declaration of Independence and beyond.
This museum offers a comprehensive timeline of key battles, truly helping you understand the struggles and triumphs of the American Revolution leading right up to Yorktown.
If you’re eager to delve deeper into the American Revolution – from its pivotal battles to its historic sites – then be sure to subscribe to our blog! We’ll be highlighting the rich history and important places of the Revolution, all leading up to July 2026 and the incredible 250th anniversary.
I recommend starting your museum visit with the informative film Liberty Fever, before spending a few hours exploring the museum galleries and learning about the history of the Revolution.
On select days you can go outdoors to the living-history areas. Here you can tour a Continental Army encampment, with daily artillery demonstrations and hear about the life of American soldiers during the war. You can also tour a real-life 18th century family farm, depicting rural life during the American Revolution.
The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown has tons of great historical resources on their website to help you virtually learn about the war and plan your visit to the museum. You can plan your visit and purchase tickets here
- Pro Tip: You can save money by purchasing a combo ticket for both the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown and the Jamestown Settlement. At the Settlement, you can fully immerse yourself in the history of America’s first permanent English colony with vivid reconstructions of Jamestown Fort and a Powhatan village, plus a museum detailing early life in the colony. And just a short distance away, you’ll also discover Historic Jamestowne, managed by the NPS and Preservation Virginia, which is the actual archaeological site of the original Jamestown settlement.
After spending a few hours at the American Revolution Museum, you can grab lunch at their on-site cafe, the delicious 1781’s by Aromas, which is a second location of my favorite coffee shop in Williamsburg, before heading to the Yorktown Battlefield.
- American Revolution Museum has a terrific gift shop with patriotic inspired gifts to cool collectibles. I racked up on Christmas gifts here in 2023 and continue to use the glasses I purchased here daily.
Yorktown Battlefield is where America’s Independence was definitively won. This expansive site, spreading across nearly 3,500 acres with sixteen miles of battlefield roads, forms a crucial part of the greater Colonial National Historical Park. With so much military history, you can easily spend days exploring Yorktown Battlefield sites.
Whether you have a few hours or a few days to explore Yorktown, I recommend starting your Revolutionary Adventure at The Visitor Center. Here you can learn about the battle of Yorktown and get maps and tour information to plan the rest of your visit. Rangers are on-site to answer any historical questions and aid in planning your visit.
One of the most popular ways to tour the various battlefield sites is via auto tour. You can purchase the digital download for the auto tours here: https://www.nps.gov/york/yorktown-guide-app.htm
There are two auto tours, including The Yellow and Red Routes.
The Yellow Route is an Allied Encampment Tour that takes you to locations used by the American and French troops for sleeping, drilling and storing artillery and other equipment. The tour begins at the area known as Surrender Field of Battlefield Tour.
The Red Route is an excellent way to see the major aspects of the Siege of Yorktown Beginning at the Visitor Center parking lot, it is a six-stop tour that takes visitors to the most important spots on the battlefield. Red Arrow signs direct you from one stop to the next. Keep in mind the tour does backtrack at times (for example you will pass stop C to get to stop B) so pay close attention to the map that is available at the Yorktown Visitor Center. Highlights include: Stop A: British Inner Defense Line; Stop B: Grand French Battery; Stop C: Second Allied Siege Line; Stop D: Redoubts 9 and 10; Stop E: Moore House; Stop F: Surrender Field
Make sure to stop at The Moore House historic site, where the final surrender occurred. General Cornwallis claimed to be ill (probably was after losing the war, sick from embarrassment). This is perhaps one of the most pivotal historic sites in the history of America’s Independence.
I also highly recommend visiting the Victory Monument, a soaring tribute that pays homage to the Americans who helped secure victory at Yorktown. While the monument itself dates to 1881, when the land was purchased by Congress, it’s fascinating to know that a monument was actually proposed just days after the victory by the Continental Congress. However, a century of funding issues and other delays pushed back its construction. Today, it stands as a beautiful tribute to the immense sacrifices and unwavering perseverance of the Continental Army and all those brave men and women who fought for our independence.
*You can experience the victory drumbeat with an authentic Fife and Drum performance in front of the Victory Monument on select days of the year. Learn more here
The National Park Service also owns and manages several historic properties within the city of Yorktown including the General Thomas Nelson house. Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, upon finding out that Cornwallis and British troops were occupying his home, Nelson ordered it fired upon. What courage and loyalty to the patriot cause to be willing to destroy your home to win the battle. Luckily the home, though damaged, was not destroyed. It is now run by the NPS and they offer tours on select days (check with rangers for availability). Fun fact, while the home was fully repaired after the war, in the early 1900s a cannonball was added to display the original damage suffered from the battle.
You can pay your respects to General Nelson at Grace Episcopal Church in Yorktown, where he is buried. Truly a great patriot, who signed the Declaration of Indpendence and served as an army leader!
In addition to the self-guiding auto tours, I also recommend signing up for a guided ranger walk with NPS staff. Learn more here.
Another popular activity at Yorktown Battlefield are the artillery demonstrations by the Royal Artillery and Lambs Artillery. For the full 2025 schedule click here, or reach out to the park service directly.
Travel through time on the Yorktown Trolley Lines
Another great option is a guided trolley tour. This way you can focus on the history and scenery without having to worry about traffic and figuring out where to turn. Yorktown & Company has a fantastic trolley tour with expert historians that take you to the key sites.
You can also take a free trolley throughout Yorktown, which is very helpful for accessibility as Yorktown doesn’t have a ton of parking. So park and ride is helpful to fight traffic and see the sights in style!
Yorktown is highly walkable and it is fun to discover the history by meandering this quaint streets that witnessed history. Visit Yorktown has compiled a great self-guided walking tour to help you explore the city on foot. Click here for the PDF
While on your walking tour, I highly recommend a stop at the historic Grace Chapel Episcopal Church, where Declaration of Independence Signer and Revolutionary War hero Thomas Nelson is buried. The church is one of the oldest in Virginia, dating to 1697! It is a wonderful place for quiet reflection and prayer.
Digging into HIstory: About the Battle of Yorktown:
The Roads to Yorktown: 1780-81
After six years of war, both the British and Continental armies were exhausted and at an effective stalemate, especially in the north. While Washington had often believed that recapturing the British capital of New York would help end the war, this had not turned out to be a feasible option. By late 1780 and early 1781, Continental forces were on the brink of mutiny over lack of wages and poor living conditions. This was not on Washington, who had constantly fought to receive the necessary funds from Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) to pay the troops and have food. However, Congress struggled with money as the Articles of Confederation did not allow Congress to exact revenue from the states and their citizens directly. So, they’d have to essentially beg each state for money, and those states were already broke too. On May 12 1780, things seemed to be at their worst for the Patriots after General Clinton (head of British operations in America), along with Cornwallis and his men, were able to take over the southern Patriot stronghold of Charleston. This was followed by Camden, SC (where we visited in December), where even though the Americans had more troops, they were decimated by Cornwallis, and American General Horatio Gates panicked and fled on horseback to Hillsborough, NC, while his men were killed and captured. (To learn more about Camden, you can check American Nomad’s visit to Camden Revolutionary War Site in December 2024).
Things weren’t so great on the British side either. Even though they technically appeared to have the upper hand in the north, the British also were tired and frustrated by the stalemate. They could not decisively wipe out the enemy, and it was also costing Parliament a lot of money. Clinton and Cornwallis believed there was strong Loyalist support in the Carolina backcountry that could help rise up to fight against men like the Patriot ‘Swamp Fox’ Francis Marion. If the Carolinas were lost, and the north was at a stalemate, it would also choke Virginia and effectively win the war. Thus began the Southern Campaign in 1780, which set in motion a series of important events leading up to Yorktown in fall 1781. While initially some of the citizens of the backcountry (anywhere within about an hour west of Charleston) were neutral, this began to shift as the war erupted in their home turf.
The reason for the neutrality wasn’t that these settlers were pro-British – many were Scots-Irish who were looking for a better life in America. However, their distance from what was then the core of South Carolina society in Charleston and The Low Country left them at times without the necessary protections they needed from things like Indian attack, protection against bandits, good access to courts (even for basic things like marriage licenses)… they had a deep frustration for Charleston and decided to focus on their region versus this national conflict. The carnage at Camden, followed by ‘Buford’s Massacre’ (we’ll be visiting this in a few weeks as I attended the reenactment there in early June), turned sentiment against the British in the backcountry. At Buford’s Massacre on May 29th, 1780, in the Waxhaws (south of Charlotte, near Lancaster, SC), many Patriots were killed even after attempting to surrender to British leader Banastre Tarleton.
The fact Tarleton’s men gave ‘no quarter’ – meaning they kept killing their opponent as they surrendered – earned Banastre Tarleton the nickname ‘The Butcher’ or ‘Bloody Ban.’ Tarleton and Cornwallis had mistakenly thought that the population would fall into submission if they showed their might, even through violence, but this only angered the local population, and guerrilla warfare-style skirmishes ensued. It was at the Battle of Kings Mountain in October 1780, Cowpens (January 17, 1781) and Guilford Courthouse (March 1781) that the British realized the South was not something they could easily win or maintain after their victories. While Cornwallis’s troops technically won the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in March 1781, it was a pyrrhic victory, where the loss for the British troops outweighed the value of the win. Cornwallis decided to give up on the Carolinas and head into Virginia, and this sets the stage for Yorktown.
With Cornwallis, Tarleton, and the infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold now operating in Virginia, they began plundering the area around present-day Williamsburg and Petersburg starting in May. Arnold himself had first terrorized this region in January 1781, burning acres upon acres of farmland from Westover, Virginia, and along the James River. This type of devastating warfare has often been compared to Sherman’s March in Georgia in the sense they both followed a scorched earth policy. Benedict Arnold’s raid did a great deal of harm to Richmond, from looting to destruction of property.
At this pivotal juncture, General Washington and his Continental Army faced a decisive decision. They could attempt to strike a decisive blow to the British capital in New York or head south to meet Cornwallis at Yorktown. While New York may have seemed the ultimate prize, Washington decided to bet on the other ‘York’ – Yorktown, where Cornwallis and his troops were now garrisoned.
Crucially, Washington and his French ally, Lt. Gen. Comte de Rochambeau, secured vital naval support from a French fleet commanded by Adm. Comte de Grasse. Together, the Allied armies marched hundreds of miles from their headquarters north of New York City to Yorktown, making theirs the largest troop movement of the American Revolution. They surprised the British with a rapid siege that turned the tide toward an American victory in the War for Independence, ultimately ensuring American independence.
The siege of Yorktown lasted several intense weeks, from September 28th to October 19th, when Cornwallis and his exhausted troops were forced to surrender.
The Battle of Yorktown marks the collapse of British war efforts. Though perhaps apocryphal, American folklore famously recounts the British band playing the tune “The World’s Turned Upside Down” during the surrender at Yorktown. But the world truly changed dramatically that day as the military operations of the War for Independence effectively ceased.
When news of Cornwallis’s surrender reached London on November 25, the Prime Minister, Lord North, famously declared, “Oh God. It is all over. It is all over.” On March 5, 1782, Parliament passed a bill authorizing the government to make peace with America. Lord North resigned 15 days later. Although it took the Americans two more years of skillful diplomacy to formally secure their independence through the Treaty of Paris, the war was won with the British defeat at Yorktown.
Want to learn more about The Battle of Yorktown? I recommend these resources:
1781- The Decisive Year of the American Revolution: I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which I purchased at the Yorktown National Battlefield Visitor’s Center.
NPS Battle of Yorktown Website
Article about Yorktown from Mt. Vernon
Sightseeing in Yorktown
With the British surrender complete, and American victory secure, it’s time to celebrate with a loud ‘Huzzah’ (Revolutionary Cheer like ‘hooray’) and toast to Independence at one of Yorktown’s great eateries.
Yorktown has lots of wonderful places to eat depending on your mood and palette from Lafayette approved coffee shops with ice cream (Little York Confectionary) to sandwiches and wine at Mobjacks or scenic waterfront dining at Waterfront Grille:
Little York Confectionary: Housed in a building dating to the 1690s, this cool coffee shop and confectionery offers chocolates that the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington would approve of. Stopping in for a latte and chocolates was the highlight of our recent trip to Yorktown and I can’t wait to return again.
Mobjack Bay Coffee Roasters and Cafe is run by the same owners as Little York and has a larger selection of their hand-roasted coffee, as well as a full breakfast and lunch menu. They offer gluten-free options too! This is one of my favorite lunch spots in Yorktown.
Water Street Grille – The best view in town. This restaurant overlooks the York River, providing scenic views to accompany their mouthwatering menu, which features local seafood as well as fan favorites like burgers and pasta. Toast to America 250 with their selection of over 20 micro-brew beers on tap including Water Street Wheat brewed exclusively for the grille by local Alewerks Brewing Company.
Yorktown Pub – Amazing pub fare and fresh local seafood located steps away from the York Riverfront. Live music on select night.
Carrot Tree Cafe Taste the sweet side of life at Carrot Tree Cafe where you can indulge in the bakery’s made from scratch signature desserts like triple-layer carrot cake with decadent cream cheese frosting and more. Their delicious scratch-made breakfast and lunch menu will fuel your day on the battlefield. They also offer grab-and-go picnic items, perfect for a day by Yorktown beach or a picnic at York River State Park.
Riverwalk Restaurant: Another wonderful spot to catch a Yorktown sunset. Located on the York River, Riverwalk has a diverse menu from fresh seafood to meats, tapas, specialty pastas and daily specials.
Coastal Thirst Beach Deli – Catch the river breeze while enjoying delicious fast-casual food from coffee and tea to raw juice, beer, cocktails and mouthwatering tacos to smash burgers. Another great restaurant with beachfront views.
Umi Sushi: This locally owned Japanese restaurant offers authentic oriental dishes such as sushi, salads, and a signature Korean dish known as Bibimbap. Umi Sushi also serves Japanese sodas and fresh fruit. Take advantage of limited seating, or order your meal to go!
Where to Stay:
Yorktown offers guests charming accommodations throughout the historic district.
The Yorktown Beach Hotel has prime access to the Yorktown River beachfront where you walk across the street and can spend a day on the sandy shore, admiring the riverfront views. The hotel is within easy walking distance of most major restaurants and historic sites in the city center. Book your stay here
Hornsby House Inn: Built in 1933, this Georgian Revival style brick home invites you to ease into the charm and monumental history of Yorktown. The bed and breakfast is conveniently located in the heart of the historic district, steps away from key historic sites and access to the Yorktown Battlefield. In addition to the main inn, the Hornsby also has cottages you can rent for your stay. Each room is graciously appointed ensuring comfort after a fun day of area exploration. Book your stay here
The Marl Inn is a cozy bed and breakfast on Church Street that embodies the Colonial spirit but with modern amenities. Enjoy a delicious breakfast on site, comfortable rooms and exceptional hospitality. Book your stay here
Yorktown Cottages: Check into Yorktown’s historic center with a stay at the Yorktown Cottages, where you can choose from two lovely cottages that accommodate up to four people in each cottage. This is a fun place to immerse yourself in the community and explore the neighborhoods on foot. Book your stay here
Other fun things to do in the Yorktown area:
- Tour Yorktown’s Watermen’s Museum on the riverfront. Their mission is to demonstrate the role Chesapeake Bay Watermen, from pre-colonial to modern times, have played in the shaping of our nation. We provide historical exhibits depicting military and civilian water craft and activities, crafts and methods of their trade, and a look into the lives of the people that have worked and fought on the water. Official Website
- Gallery at York Hall: Discover one-of-a-kind Yorktown souvenirs from local artisans. Located on historic Main Street, this welcome center and art gallery features a mix of tourism information alongside art exhibits and gallery shops from over 300 local artists. This is a must stop in historic Yorktown! There is always something new and beautiful at the Gallery!
- Throughout the year, Yorktown sponsors fun family-friendly events on the Riverfront from concerts to festivals and more. Follow their facebook page for the latest happenings
- A day trip to Colonial Williamsburg – check out my recent blog about Williamsburg here.
- Drive to the Mobjack Bay (Chesapeake Bay area) and the historic city of Gloucester (we’ll be visiting this city later in June)
- Head over to Newport to tour historic Endview Plantation and also Lee Hall Mansion, as well as other Newport sites like the Virginia Living Museum, Mariner’s Museum and Park and Virginia War Museum. https://newportnewshistory.org/
- Busch Gardens, we visited Busch Gardens in our Must-See in Williamsburg Guide. No matter the season Busch Gardens is a fun and exhilarating adventure for the whole family.
Interested in planning your Yorktown adventure? Check out their official website here.
On our next blog post, we’ll enjoy a day trip to Virginia Beach and other regional sites. Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to get the join in on the latest American Nomad Adventures
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Hi, I’m Adele Lassiter, the travel enthusiast behind American Nomad Traveler. This blog where I share my love for history, cool museums, art, and travel tips. When I’m not writing, I’m a singer-songwriter with a passion for Americana music. Her new album is available here: adelelassiter.bandcamp.com
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