Where to stay

Baltimore is a great place to stay with kids. Walk along the very wide waterfront promenade or go to a professional football or baseball game from a hotel in the Inner Harbor neighborhood. Several kid-focused museums, such as the Maryland Science Center, are located here too. Harbor East hotels are also close to the waterfront attractions of the National Aquarium and highly acclaimed Port Discovery Children's Museum. Hotels in Woodlawn and Pikesville are near Druid Hill Park, which has the Maryland Zoo and a large lake lined by cherry blossoms in the spring. Book a hotel in Fell's Point and treat the family to a water taxi ride through the harbor. Be sure to introduce kids to the flavor of crab cakes at restaurants in neighborhoods across Baltimore; stay in Downtown Baltimore or Catonsville on the west side for some of the best. Also west of the city, accommodations in Columbia are near Lake Elkhorn Park and Lake Kittamaqundi, for fun paddleboating and hiking.

With centuries of habitation, Baltimore has a great number of historic attractions. Stay in Fell's Point, one of Baltimore's oldest neighborhoods. From here, take a water taxi to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, whose stars, stripes and rocket's red glare inspired Francis Scott Key's penning of the poem that later became the U.S. national anthem. Harbor East hotels are close to the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House where Mary Pickersgill had made that flag. A hotel in the Cathedral Hill Historic District might be next to one of the area's 100 historic structures from as early as 1790. Find a hotel in Downtown Baltimore to visit the Lexington Market, established in 1782, close to the time of the birth of the nation. Nearby is the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.

Mount Vernon is a great place to stay for a variety of cultural experiences. Visit the Baltimore Museum of Art, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore Symphony and Washington Monument, which is older than the one in the nation's capital. Baltimore has a tradition of makers, from printmaking to glassblowing to brewing. A hotel in Halethorpe makes it convenient to watch brewers making Guinness beer in the company's only U.S. brewery. While Linthicum Heights is just a five-minute drive from Baltimore Washington International Airport, making its hotels very convenient for travelers, it's also home to the popular National Electronics Museum. North of the city in Towson, stay near Towson University, one of the oldest in the state, to visit some of its art, music, dance and theater performances and enjoy the youthful culture around the campus.