Ready to get away to it all?

Then hop in your car or boat and head to Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, Maryland. From the moment your feet hit the brick-lined streets of Annapolis’ Historic District or the wind catches your sails at City Dock, you will feel miles away and centuries removed from the day-to-day world of quotas and deadlines.

Don your docksiders and captain a boat or unwind on a cruise. Head for your favorite restaurant and relax over fresh from the Bay seafood. Rediscover life’s simple pleasures with a visit to the villages of South County. Drink in the beauty at one of our many art galleries. Satisfy the shopper in you at our one-of-a-kind antiques, crafts, and specialty shops. Our Colonial history will embrace you every step of the way.

Alive With History

If it’s been awhile since you last treated yourself to a refreshing retreat in America’s Sailing Capital, you will quickly see that there’s a lot that’s new in old Annapolis. History Quest is now open at 99 Main Street. Designed to give visitors a taste of the Museum Without Walls that is Annapolis, the center traces the history of Maryland’s capital city from its creation to present day. While there, stop by Fleming’s Bake Shop, featuring tasty treats from the 18th-century.

Headed to the U.S. Naval Academy? A new visitors entrance at Gate One on King George Street makes accessing The Yard all the easier. If you stop by the Naval Academy Chapel, notice the new organ console that took more than 1,000 hours to build. A gift of the Academy’s 1951 graduating class, the console is considered to be the largest of its kind in the world.

The African-American Experience

African-American history takes center stage at the newly expanded Banneker-Douglass Museum at 84 Franklin Street. Doubled in size following a multi-million dollar expansion, the museum explores the history of African Americans in Maryland from the 1630s to the present day. In partnership with the Kunta Kinte—Alex Haley Foundation, Watermark’s African-American Heritage tour retells the stories of slave and free African Americans who helped change the course of our nation’s history.

Water, Water Everywhere

The Lady Pintail II is the newest addition to Annapolis and Anne Arundel County’s boating scene. She joins an already robust tour and charter industry that includes everything from 40-minute cruises around the Annapolis Harbor, to Day-on-the-Bay journeys to the Eastern Shore. The veteran cruise and tour icon, Watermark, recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, and tours of the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse are now available. The last screwpile lighthouse left in its original location is 1.5 miles offshore in the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the South River. Visitors access the lighthouse via a boat that departs the Annapolis Maritime Museum on Back Creek on select days through September. Because the tours are limited to 18 passengers, reservations are required and can be made by calling 800-690-5080 or by visiting www.chesapeakelights.com.

Lovers of maritime history should head to the Annapolis Maritime Museum in Eastport. Under reconstruction since Hurricane Isabel, it has reopened at the site of the former McNasby Oyster Company. A newly renovated self-guided Eastport Walking Tour introduces visitors to 14 historic points around the Horn Point Peninsula. Suggested starting points for the tour include the Maritime Museum or the Eastport end of the Spa Creek Bridge.

Southern Anne Arundel County is intrinsically linked to the water. Maritime villages including Deale, Galesville, Mayo, and Shady Side invite you to escape to a simpler time, and a new Four Rivers Heritage Area brochure, Landings, helps you to do just that. The brochure includes a map that shows boaters how to access historic attractions along the heritage area shoreline from Sandy Point State Park to Herring Bay. Another hot-off-the-press publication is Discover Four Rivers: A History Explorer’s Guide. The 30-page piece organizes the region’s major stories into five major trails: Four Rivers & the Bay, Life on the Land, Annapolis’ Golden Age, African American Heritage, and Sacred Places.

Off the Beaten Path

No day in Annapolis and Arundel County is complete without a visit to the largest ongoing archaeological dig in Maryland at Historic London Town and Gardens. Located just outside of Annapolis in Edgewater, London Town recently opened a new multi-million dollar Visitor Center. The educational facility features a museum and a classroom for interpreting on-site archaeological finds. This, in addition to the eight-acre woodland garden that London Town has long been known for.

BWI Hotel District

If you are flying into or out of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in Anne Arundel County, you are just minutes from popular museums including the Benson-Hammond House with its 400-strong international doll collection. The nearby National Cryptologic Museum provides a peek at the world of secret codes from the 1500s to the present day. At the Historical Electronics Museum, visitors can generate electricity, listen to the first commercial radio broadcast, watch man land on the moon, or simply admire the advancement in defensive and commercial electronics technology that the United States has experienced in the last century.

There’s a lot that’s new at BWI these days. An all-time high of nearly 21-million commercial passengers flew through the airport in 2006. Southwest Airlines now offers direct flights to Pittsburgh and Oklahoma City. Air Tran provides service to Daytona Beach and direct flights to Portland, Maine. Local favorites including Border’s Books, Joseph A. Banks Clothiers, Phillips Seafood, Bill Bateman’s, and Uncle Teddy’s Pretzels are now among the retail establishments and restaurants travelers can enjoy at BWI.

A Shopper’s Paradise

Forever evolving, the shopping experience in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County is an attraction in itself. Ranked among the top three shopping attractions in the nation by U.S. Family Travel Guide, Arundel Mills Mall is a 1.3 million square foot shopper-tainment complex that boasts more than 225 stores, including a new Neiman Marcus Last Call. Westfield Annapolis has completed a $100 million expansion that added more than 240,000 square feet of new and reconfigured shop space to the regional shopping center. Some 60 new retailers opened their doors upon completion of the expansion, making Westfield Annapolis Anne Arundel’s largest shopping destination at 1.5 million square feet.

If one-of-a-kind galleries and specialty shops are more your style, stroll through Historic Annapolis where Maryland Avenue, Main, and West Streets have earned worldwide reputations as shopping hot spots. Art remains alive and well in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. In the Historic District alone, some 18 galleries and studios beckon art enthusiasts to feast their eyes on the work of local, regional, and national artists. The Marion Warren Gallery featuring more than 100 rare silver gelatin photographs by the legendary photographer is the newest addition to the State Circle arts community. Witness lumps of clay transformed before your eyes at Annapolis Pottery, sharpen your jewelry-making skills at the Bead Bungalow, visit the homes/studios of local artisans, or choose from works by local artists at ARTFX, now in its new location on Church Circle in Annapolis.

Dining By The Bay

Amidst four centuries of architecture, Annapolis is a thriving, upbeat, contemporary city featuring dozens of restaurants offering worldwide cuisine in elegant to down-to-earth settings. Annapolis and Anne Arundel County are still at the top of the list when it comes to Maryland steamed crabs. Restaurants serving up nature’s bounty dot the more than 400 miles of shoreline that weave their way throughout Anne Arundel County. Favorites including Mike’s Restaurant and Crab House, Jimmy Cantler’s Riverside Inn, Skippers Pier, Phillips Annapolis Harbor, and others help contribute to the claim that some 3.9 million crabs are cracked here each year.

Be Our Guest

With 9,400 hotel rooms in the county and more than 30 bed and breakfasts in the Annapolis area, it’s easy to find accommodations that are right for you or your group. We invite you to pack your bags and Come Sail Away to a renewed you.