Visiting the Baltimore to catch an Orioles game? Here’s a few ideas of what else to do while you’re in town.
Baltimore is a cool city. People who avoid it because of outdated ideas of its problems are missing out on a lot. Whether you are coming in from well out of town or just from the suburbs to watch the Orioles, there’s a lot of other fun things to do around town that can cater to a variety of different interests.
Food
This section is mostly for the out-of-towners. I assume I don’t need to tell any Marylander any of these things.
The best crab cake
A lot of Baltimore people have very passionate feelings about the absolute best place to get one of the best local specialties, the jumbo lump crab cake. Here’s my general advice: The best crab cake place is your most convenient crab cake place. (Exception: Phillips Seafood in the Inner Harbor, while well known, is the tourist place. You can do better.)
For someone who is staying in a downtown hotel, I suggest walking a few blocks north of Oriole Park at Camden Yards to Lexington Market, an institution that can trace its roots to 1782. In Lexington Market, you’ll find Faidley’s Seafood, which itself dates to 1886, and that’s where you should get a crab cake. This is not where to go if you want to feel fancy, because you will just stand at a nearby market table and eat your food. Enjoy it with a National Bohemian (Natty Boh), a beer that used to be brewed in Baltimore and people still like it anyway even though it isn’t brewed here any more. Don’t wait, because they close at 5pm on weekdays.
Steamed crabs that you crack open yourself and eat are another crab-related local delicacy that you can find at a variety of local restaurants. It’s a lot of work for someone who’s not experienced, but you really can’t beat an outdoor atmosphere where the tables are covered in newspaper and piled with freshly-caught crabs. Nick’s Fish House is a couple of miles south of Camden Yards, right on the water, and a great place to go for a tourist to eat like a local. All of the seafood is good here. You don’t have to only get crabs.
If you’ve got a car and you want to drive out of the city limits a short distance, most people who have experienced it will agree that a very good crab cake can be found at G&M Restaurant & Lounge. Conveniently located for a stop on your way to the airport, if the timing works out for you.
Pit beef
I know what you’re thinking. Can any meat on a bun possibly be so interesting as to be worth highlighting it specially? Trust me: Yes. Pit beef is a local treasure; unlike crab cakes, there are no imitators elsewhere. You’ll only find this in the Baltimore area. Cooked over charcoal, thinly sliced and on the rare side, this sandwich gets a nice zip from a horseradish/mayo combo and sliced onions.
The best place I could recommend to try this Baltimore specialty is Chaps Pit Beef, which also happens to be famously adjacent to the parking lot for a strip club. Everyone expects you to have a slightly seedy Baltimore story already. No sense disappointing them.
Other good food
If you just want to eat some good food and don’t want to wade into the great Baltimore crab cake debate, a couple more options:
- Miss Shirley’s Cafe – This brunch spot (closes 3pm daily) was a favorite of a past generation of Orioles players and is still really good.
- Charleston – If you are celebrating a special occasion and want to treat yourself, this place in Harbor East is my pick for you. Freshly awarded a James Beard in 2025.
History
Fort McHenry
Most of the Baltimore natives you might encounter could give you a pretty good off-the-cuff summation of the events that led to Francis Scott Key writing The Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem since 1931. The place where the flag was raised that Key was writing about towards the end of the War of 1812 (but by then it was 1814!) is Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which still stands today.
The site is labeled a National Monument and Historic Shrine and is run by the National Park Service. You should go.
The Star-Spangled Banner Flag House
Not only can you see where the flag was flying in 1814, you can visit the house where it was sewn, preserved or recreated as much as possible to what it would have looked like in the Baltimore of the early 19th century. A museum for close to 100 years, the house is preserved to tell of the lives of a widow named Mary Young Pickersgill and members of her household, who stitched together the broad stripes and bright stars that, o’er the ramparts they watched, were so gallantly streaming.
Fun fact: Fort McHenry and the Flag House are among the small number of locations where the flag of the United States of America is authorized and mandated to be flown around the clock.
Walking tours
Earlier in the year, my wife and I did a little Civil War-themed walking tour in Baltimore, run by a local historian who manages the Full Story Baltimore set of tours. There is a rich history in Baltimore that dates into the colonial period, not a lot of which is examined today. I learned a lot even as a life-long Marylander and if you want to get out and walk around the city, I think you’ll learn something too. For summer 2025, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War, the tour being offered is Revolution in Baltimore Town.
Green Mount Cemetery
During the day except on Sundays, you can see gravestones dating back nearly 200 years that mark the resting spots of veterans of American wars dating back to the War of 1812, eight different mayors of Baltimore and governors of Maryland, families and their scions that have streets, surrounding towns, buildings (Enoch Pratt Free Library), and/or universities (Johns Hopkins) named after them to this day, and also, uh, in an unmarked grave in his family’s plot, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.
Edgar Allan Poe things
Baltimore is one of several cities that claim pieces of the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe, which is a debate for some people which city deserves the biggest credit but there is only one city that, by a public vote, chose the name of its professional football team after a Poe work, and that is Baltimore, home of the Ravens. I once saw a guy who had a tattoo of Poe’s face on his calf.
In Baltimore, you can find the Poe House and Museum, where Poe lived in the 1830s, as well as his grave, now located within the grounds of the Law School of the University of Maryland. Ask about the Poe Toaster.
Other museums
The Walters Art Museum
Freely available to the public, the collection of art in this museum spans literally seven thousand years of human history from all across the world. This includes original works from artists that even a rube like me has heard of, such as Monet and Manet, just don’t ask me to tell you which is which or even what’s different about them. Without exaggeration, one of the most memorable days of my life was the first time I ever strolled through this gallery.
The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture
Black people have been a part of Maryland’s history for about as long as there has been a Maryland. The fact that the earliest parts of this history is uncomfortable to consider, with enslaved people being brought here against their will, makes it all the more important to confront and acknowledge.
The Lewis museum, the largest African American-focused museum in the state, houses artifacts from 1784 on through to the present that tell the stories of the lives that Black Marylanders have lived and the contributions that they have made in all eras of this country’s history. Closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and open until 5 on other days, the Lewis stands on the other side of the Inner Harbor from Camden Yards.
Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum
Did you know that the Babe was born in Baltimore? It’s true. The house he was born in 1895 is still there, three blocks to the west of where the baseball stadium stands today. What started out as a place solely dedicated to the legacy of the Babe has expanded to a broader history of Maryland sports, including both of its major pro teams, the Orioles and Ravens, as well as a lot of other smaller things.
Animals
For the young or the young at heart who like seeing a variety of different animals, there are two pretty nice choices in the city.
The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore
Everybody loves a zoo. Maybe not literally everybody, but most people. Baltimore has a nice one, and if you plan your trip well in the summer of 2025, you might even get to see the new baby giraffe that was born in March.
The National Aquarium
I probably went on a field trip to this museum every grade from 1st through 8th. I have been back as an adult and it’s different now but it’s still great. One advantage the aquarium has over some of the other places I’ve highlighted here is that it’s one of the closest other attractions to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and it would be very easy to do the aquarium in the morning and afternoon and an Orioles game at night.