Welcome to the Yodeller, hon. Consider this your initiation. Below are 50 things every Baltimorean should do at least once — the food, the dive bars, the weird museums, the only-here stuff nobody puts on a postcard. Knock ’em out one at a time. And starting tomorrow morning, we’ll tell you exactly what’s worth doing each day. Let’s go.
Eat & Drink Like a Local If you have to ask what it is, you’re already doing it wrong.
9 Order a lake trout. It’s not trout and there’s no lake — it’s fried whiting on white bread, and it’s a Baltimore institution. Just trust it.✓ 10 Get pit beef off Pulaski Highway. Charcoal-charred, sliced thin, piled on a kaiser with tiger sauce and raw onion. Chaps is the famous one — Guy Fieri wasn’t wrong.✓ 11 Kill a snowball in July. Shaved ice, flavored syrup, and — non-negotiable — a scoop of marshmallow on top. Egg custard is the local order.✓ 12 Bite into a Berger cookie. A soft cookie carrying an obscene slab of fudge. Roughly half a pound of joy. A birthright.✓ 13 Do Corned Beef Row. Overstuffed corned beef on rye at Attman’s Deli, slinging since 1915. Grab a half-sour on your way out.✓ 14 Lap a public market. Baltimore basically invented the public market. Do a full circuit of the rebuilt Lexington, Cross Street in Fed Hill, or Broadway Market in Fells.✓ 15 Eat Bertha’s mussels. You’ve seen the bumper sticker your whole life. Now go earn it in Fells Point. Order the mussels. Obviously.✓ 16 Get weird over breakfast. Scrapple, eggs, and a milkshake under thousands of hanging toys at the gloriously bizarre Papermoon Diner.✓ Music, Nightlife & Getting Weird Baltimore comes alive after dark. Keep up.
17 Sweat through a show at the Ottobar. Baltimore’s beating rock-and-roll heart — loud, a little grimy, exactly right.✓ 18 Get close at Keystone Korner. World-class jazz in a Harbor East supper club where the players are near enough to high-five.✓ 19 Lose your mind at the AVAM. The American Visionary Art Museum is a shrine to outsider genius — and it throws the Kinetic Sculpture Race, where homemade art-machines try to cross the harbor every spring.✓ 20 Post up at Cat’s Eye Pub. Free live blues, seven nights a week, smack in the middle of Fells Point. No cover, no attitude.✓ 21 Catch music on the water. A summer show at Pier Six on the harbor, or a free First Thursday concert in the park. Bring a blanket.✓ 22 Spend a night at the Creative Alliance. Highlandtown’s arts engine — drag, film, live bands, and something you didn’t know you needed to see.✓ 23 Sit up front at An die Musik. A tiny second-floor listening room where jazz and classical feel like a house concert.✓ Art, History & Big Beautiful Buildings World-class culture, and a lot of it is free.
24 Roam the BMA. One of the best Matisse collections on Earth, and it won’t cost you a dime. The Baltimore Museum of Art is free. Always.✓ 25 See the armor at the Walters. Knights, mummies, illuminated manuscripts — a jaw-dropping collection, also free.✓ 26 Stand in the Cathedral of Books. The George Peabody Library in Mount Vernon: five stories of cast-iron balconies bathed in gold light. Bring your camera.✓ 27 Climb the first Washington Monument. Yes, first — Baltimore beat D.C. to it in 1829. Take the 227 steps in Mount Vernon for the view.✓ 28 Reckon with the real history. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum and the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum tell stories every Baltimorean should carry.✓ 29 Nerd out at the B&O Railroad Museum. American railroading was born on this very spot. The roundhouse alone is worth the trip.✓ 30 Tag Graffiti Alley. In Station North, the city’s one legal-to-paint alley — a riot of color that looks completely different week to week.✓ 31 Meet the aquarium locals. Sharks, a four-story rainforest under glass, and a room full of jellies at the National Aquarium on the Inner Harbor — still one of the best in the country.✓ Get Outside Parks, water, and neighborhoods worth wearing out your shoes for.
32 Grab the skyline from Fed Hill. The classic Baltimore postcard — harbor, boats, downtown — from the top of Federal Hill Park.✓ 33 Climb the Patterson Park Pagoda. Best view in East Baltimore. Come back in summer for Fluid Movement’s gloriously campy synchronized-swimming water ballet.✓ 34 Escape into Druid Hill. Wander one of America’s oldest big parks, tour the glass Rawlings Conservatory, and say hi to the animals at the Maryland Zoo.✓ 35 Smell the roses at Cylburn. A hidden arboretum and mansion with gardens and trails, minutes from the city grind.✓ 36 Walk the waterfront. The promenade from Fells Point to Canton at golden hour — brick, boats, and the best people-watching in town.✓ 37 Ride the Circulator to nowhere. Hop the free Charm City Circulator and just go. No destination required.✓ 38 Do the Avenue in Hampden. 36th Street’s oddball shops, and Atomic Books — the store where John Waters gets his actual fan mail.✓ 39 Spot the folk architecture. Formstone facades, hand-painted window screens, and gleaming white marble stoops — Baltimore’s homegrown art, hiding in plain sight.✓ Only-in-Baltimore & Seasonal The stuff you can’t do anywhere else on the planet.
40 Raid The Book Thing. A warehouse of free books where the only rule is “be greedy.” Open one weekend a month — check bookthing.org before you go.✓ 41 Say hi to Mr. Trash Wheel. The beloved googly-eyed river robot that slurps garbage out of the harbor. Yes, he has a fan club. Yes, you’ll love him.✓ 42 Go loud at Camden Yards. Orioles baseball in the ballpark that changed baseball. Get Boog’s BBQ down the third-base line, stay for a crab cake.✓ 43 Wear purple on a Ravens Friday. Then go deafen yourself at M&T Bank Stadium. Purple Friday is not a suggestion around here.✓ 44 Bet two bucks at the Preakness. The middle jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown, run right here every May. Wear a ridiculous hat.✓ 45 Get lost in Artscape. The country’s largest free arts festival takes over the city each summer — art cars, big stages, and fried everything.✓ 46 Celebrate the Hon. HonFest in Hampden: beehive wigs, cat-eye glasses, and a whole festival built around Baltimore’s favorite term of endearment.✓ 47 Catch a drive-in double feature. The Bengies Drive-In has the biggest movie screen in the country. Bring bug spray and blankets, stay for two films under the stars.✓ 48 See a movie the old way. A first-run flick at the beautifully restored Senator, or something strange and wonderful at The Charles.✓ 49 Go full John Waters. Baltimore’s patron saint of filth filmed here — hunt down Pink Flamingos and Hairspray locations and toast the Pope of Trash.✓ 50 Chase the lights on 34th Street. Every December one Hampden rowhouse block goes gloriously overboard — the Miracle on 34th Street. There’s a hubcap Christmas tree. You have to see it.✓
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The Charm City Yodeller · Baltimore’s Vibes, Delivered Daily.
