Things to do in Baltimore

Neighborhood · South-east waterfront

An eighteenth-century shipbuilding quarter with cobbled streets, a working tugboat pier, and one of the densest concentrations of old pubs in the country.

Local tip: Broadway Market has been rebuilt and is the better daytime stop; the pubs on Thames Street get loud and student-heavy at weekends. The water taxi from here to Canton and the Inner Harbour beats driving and parking.

Food · Downtown / west side

A public market trading since 1782, rebuilt into a new hall in 2022 after decades of decline — raw bar, pit beef, Faidley's crab cakes and a genuine cross-section of the city.

Local tip: Faidley's lump crab cake is the one thing to order, and it is worth the price. The old hall's reputation lingered long after the new building opened; judge it on what is there now.

Neighborhood · North Baltimore

A former mill village turned the city's most self-aware neighbourhood — vintage shops, cafés and the 'hon' aesthetic on 36th Street, known universally as The Avenue.

Local tip: Come back in December for the Miracle on 34th Street, one residential block that covers itself in lights to a degree that has to be seen. Park elsewhere and walk in.

Culture · Mount Vernon and Charles Village

Two serious art museums a couple of miles apart — the Walters Art Museum's encyclopaedic collection in Mount Vernon, and the Baltimore Museum of Art's Matisse holdings, the largest anywhere, beside the Hopkins campus.

Local tip: Both are free, permanently, which is unusual for museums of this quality in the US. The BMA's sculpture garden is a good weekday lunch spot and nobody thinks to use it.

Nature · East Baltimore

The east side's central green space, with a restored 1890 observation pagoda that gives the best free view of the city and the harbour.

Local tip: The pagoda only opens on limited Sunday afternoons in season — check before making the trip. The park's boat lake and the surrounding streets are the best gauge of how the east side is actually doing.

Culture · West and east Baltimore

The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum on East North Avenue was the first wax museum of African American history in the country; Pennsylvania Avenue was the segregation-era heart of Black musical Baltimore, where Billie Holiday grew up and Cab Calloway played.

Local tip: Pair the museum with the Arch Social Club and the Billie Holiday statue at Pennsylvania and Lafayette. This is the part of the city's history that the Inner Harbour tourist circuit leaves out entirely.