The magazine cover shows her wearing pearls, silvery pointy-toed high heels, and a fuchsia dress with cap sleeves, cinched at the waist with a bow. The Washington Monument can be seen through the window. Beside her is a blue chair from the early 1800s decorated with a golden eagle.
Mrs. Obama has appeared on other magazine covers, including Glamour, Vogue, O, People and Time, but this is the first time in Conde Nast Traveler's 23-year history that it has put the wife of a U.S. president on the front.
She said she created an informal "Camp Obama" last summer to expose her girls to attractions related to American history because she worried that they'd learned "more about history in Europe than they did here."
In addition to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate, which she called "incredibly beautiful," they've visited Frederick Douglass' home and Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate.
She told the magazine that her daughters "love the Newseum," an interactive museum about news history. They enjoyed Luray Caverns in Virginia, too: "Yes! We saw the egg," she said, referring to a formation in the cave that looks like fried eggs.
She reflected on the limits of her ability to experience Washington like other visitors. "I would love, and so would the president, to be able to walk up and down the Mall, not at night but in the middle of the day, when there are millions of people there, and experience it in the way that you're used to experiencing it," she said.
Even a simple dinner date snarls traffic for blocks. "It's like, 'OK, we're going to that restaurant, and everyone's going to get mad, 'cause I'm there eating my hamburger,"' she told the magazine.
Restaurants in Washington where Mrs. Obama and her husband have dined include Blue Duck Tavern, where they celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary; Restaurant Nora, where the president took her for her 46th birthday; and Good Stuff Eatery, described as her favourite burger joint, where the menu includes a "Michelle Melt."
This magazine cover provided by Conde Nast Publications shows first lady Michelle Obama posed in the Blue Room of the White House for the May cover of Conde Nast Traveler magazine. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Conde Nast Publications, Jonas Fredwall Karlsson)
