Best Tent Camping: Maryland. Evan L. Balkan

      PREFACE

      I’ve had the good fortune to travel quite a bit, visiting some 25 countries on four continents and more than 30 American states. When I travel, comparisons to home are inevitable. Maryland, by most accounts, should come up short. After all, while Maryland enjoys a rich history (I grew up just a mile from a church built in the late 1600s), what is it against Machu Picchu, the Roman Coliseum, or the pyramids at Giza? Maryland’s high point tops out at just over 3,300 feet—what’s that against major peaks in the Rockies, the Andes, or the Himalayas? Yes, I’ve spent many happy hours frolicking in the green, pounding surf of the mid-Atlantic off Ocean City, but can it compare to the crystal clarity of Lake Tahoe or the stupendous natural splendor of the Pacific off California’s Big Sur?

      Believe it or not, I find that, invariably, my little Maryland manages to hold its own, thank you very much.

      Perhaps an objective judge would find my favorable comparisons ridiculous, and I’ll concede that there’s something of a hometown bias going on, but I make my complimentary judgments without embarrassment. In fact, when I first visited Lake Tahoe and California’s Pacific Coast, for example, it was October, and while virtually everything I saw in beautiful northern California was brown and scrubby, my flight home gave me one more reminder why I love Maryland so much. During the airplane’s descent, I watched with joy as we glided over the spiraling kaleidoscope of color that is autumn in Maryland.

      I once read that when you take into account all of Maryland’s tributaries, the state actually has more miles of shoreline than California. I find that claim dubious, though I suppose some favorable formulation will allow one to arrive at that conclusion. Of course, there are so many competing claims for superlatives—for instance, I’ve seen no fewer than three locales boasting that they are the world’s most isolated, populated spots—it seems that the veracity of claims of highest, deepest, wettest, oldest, and so on has to be measured against formulation and whatever particular tourist board is making the assertion. Nevertheless, it is indisputable that if you take the Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, and all the tributaries in the Bay watershed, you could spend a lifetime paddling the shores of all of them. Still, for my money, plunk me down in the mountains, and I’m content. Maryland’s west is full of great recreational activities, and the camping is no exception. Even in the crowded central corridor between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., camping and other recreational opportunities abound.

      In short, Marylanders enjoy something of an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the great outdoors. So get out there and enjoy it.

      —Evan Balkan