You should be VERY careful about swimming in the back river. The wastewater treatment plant that discharges into it has basically been running at 20% capacity for past year or more.

https://www.wbaltv.com/amp/article/back-river-public-health-...

Ok, you raise a good point, the park is actually on Hawk Cove.

One just drives along the Back River to get there

These things exist everywhere - the cheap/free options have no marketing budgets.

I fondly remember something similar at Gasworks Park in Seattle.

Yes! Lots of good memories grabbing Paseo and then eating it on the Gasworks hill overlooking Lake Union. It gets pretty crowded on nice days, but so do most city parks.

Our spot was the Northlake Tavern; grab a pizza to go and head over.

I love this, with research and forward planning you can create magical experiences. One of my favorites when my son was very young is there is an island on cape cod we could paddle our canoe to and camp fronting a sandy beach under the shade of pine trees with warm protected waters for $8 a night (MA residents); the catch is that you had to book one of the dozen or so sites months ahead.

That's sound awesome. What's the name of the island/camp?

Writing from the Nickerson state park at Cape Cod which is also one of great parks with prestine lakes (and cheap for MA residents $20). Though cheapness makes it really hard to book, July-August you have to book at the opening date 6 month in advance.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the reason you have to do this is because >50% of reservations no-show.

right, for this particular place the cancellation fee is more than the night camping rate!

I discovered something like this nearby to me recently. Not salt water since we're about two hours from the ocean, but a lake with playgrounds, beaches and forested walking areas. The lake is man made to cool the nearby nuclear plant and I suspect these were built as a concession to the state, but they're very well maintained and nice. I take my three year old fishing and to the playground and he loves it.

> Not salt water since we're about two hours from the ocean [...] The lake is man made to cool the nearby nuclear plant

Rancho Seco? I grew up near there and have fond memories of it. The nuclear plant was shut down a couple years before I was born, but the structures are still standing; IIRC it's (slowly) being turned into a solar power station.

Nah, I moved out to NC from SoCal last year. Harris Lake is the place I'm talking about, cools down Shearon Harris nuclear plant. Looks like thats up around Sacramento? My cousin recently moved to Modesto from PA so I'll recommend it to him.

Maryland\DC is great for kid-friendly activities. Annual passes to the aquarium and Baltimore zoo were reasonable 20 years ago, not sure about now. Inner harbor was great too.

Ha, we have annual passes to both.

I didn't want to bring them up because going for a day to the Aquarium is actually pretty expensive: 40 bucks per adult, 30 bucks for 3-11, and you're dropping another 15-25 bucks on parking too, probably.

But it works out great for us since we can get to either by bike or bus in 10 minutes, so we can go enough to make the memberships worth it (150-200 bucks if I recall correctly, it was my wife that made this purchase).

Also if you live in the city there are a lot of ways to score free Aquarium tickets (main one I can think of is the public library).

My wife would use our passes to take our two kids plus a neighbor with kids on weekdays while I was at work.

Inner Harbor is pretty dangerous nowadays. Do some research before heading there

Eh, I mean, not in any way that'll impact going to the Aquarium at 10 AM.

I'm aware of the incidents that are (probably) making you say this, but during the day it's fine as long as you don't get out of your car and bum-rush groups of young men on the street with a baseball bat.

It's just generally not the nicest place to be at night, though. Too big and empty and the night life is elsewhere in the city for the most part.

To each their own, but I'd rather altogether avoid a place where shootings are a common thing: https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/howard-county-teen-ar...

It's far safer "nowadays" than it used to be in the 1980s.

I recently visited the aquarium (2019 - right before Covid). While the immediate area around the aquarium felt safe, the sketchiness factor seemed to increase very quickly as you went further away.

The last time I visited the aquarium was in the 1980s with my dad. I had very fond memories of both the aquarium and riding those small white electric boat things in the harbor. I didn't feel unsafe at all, but then again I was an elementary school kid so what would I have known back then?

Then again, back then I distinctly felt unsafe going into Manhattan in NYC, and recall my dad commuted into the city with a steel baton and pepper spray in his briefcase for self defense.

Heh, well, if you went north (away from the water) you would have hit "The Block," a collection of strip clubs the city allows, in its infinite wisdom, to persist two blocks north of the Aquarium. But it de-sketches if you keep going!

The Harbor these days is just empty compared to the '90s, which certainly makes it feel sketchier. As I said, I don't think it's that dangerous, but I wouldn't say it's a nice place to be, especially at night (side note: "The Block" is dangerous at night), and when friends visit I take them to different neighborhoods for dinner / drinks.

> The Harbor these days is just empty compared to the '90s, which certainly makes it feel sketchier. As I said, I don't think it's that dangerous

Just adding the link here because I lived in Baltimore and think it's irresponsible that so many Baltimore residents try to hand-wave away how dystopian Baltimore really is. It absolutely is a dangerous place and visitors should be extremely careful if they visit the city. It was already at over 150 murders in less than half a year this past June.

> The violence has not let up with almost 160 murders in the city so far this year.

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/howard-county-teen-ar...

I lived 15 min from Ocean City for 3 months last summer, that place was miserable. Assateague State Park was just south and much better, with wild horses too. But no lodging besides camping.

During the worst of the pandemic i think my family hit 10-12 different state parks here in Texas multiple times on weekend trips. We have an annual pass to all Texas state parks and with pay-at-the-pump the only human interaction we had was handing our pass to the gate attendant and getting it back. It kept us sane and we saw a lot of the state we had never seen before.

I think the real problem is not that things are nicer, but that everyone demands "The Best". Disneyland is "The Best" attraction - In the world. When I was a kid, plenty of people were happy to go to local theme parks. Now, everyone has constant access to "Best of" lists. Being #2 is good enough, but being #10 probably only nets you a fraction of the mindshare it used to.

I've learned never to claim online that a restaurant here in Baltimore "is good."

Has to be "we like [restaurant]" followed by disclaimers about having a toddler and not getting out much. Otherwise someone is guaranteed to scoff.

Most places don't have a "theme" park like Disneyland. And Amusement parks are often very expensive too. In some cases the park ticket and parking is almost as expensive as Disneyland (as is the case for me). Although, it is cheaper because of travel expenses (unless you live close to Disneyland).

That's nice, and healthy. We do similar small trips. Many people who like big beaches are looking for different things. Big breakers, doing more with boards and watercraft, and of course the social element of seeing and being seen at the beach.

As they say, the best things in life are free.

Yea, but they've been getting more expensive with inflation.

Going to the beach is still free. Biking in the hills is still free.

Love it, even in SF or NYC there are tranquil free little "zen zones"

If you haven't yet, check out Ft. McHenry. It's beautiful!