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With travelsupermarket.com's hotels finder you can search for hotels in Baltimore from over 55 hotel websites with one click - saving you time and money! We compare all the big name hotel chains as well as some smaller companies you may not have heard of so you can get a full view of hotels in Baltimore - from budget accommodation to 5 star luxury hotels. We have also teamed up with tripadvisor to provide hotel customer reviews for many of the properties we compare and the prices and availability shown in our hotels search are real time.

To begin your search for cheap hotels in Baltimore just fill in our search form on the left and click search.

What's On?                     Overview                     Prepare                     Highlights 

Overview

Overview

Casual, spontaneous and full of energy, Maryland's biggest city combines northern Yankee style with southern belle charm. Curved around a sheltered harbour are individual neighbourhoods of red-brick row houses, marble mansions, dockside warehouses and modern skyscrapers. These document its four centuries of history better than any book.

See

Lively street artists perform against the backdrop of the glass pyramid-topped National Aquarium in the Inner Harbor. Tear yourself away to explore the city's cultural centre of Mount Vernon, and check out painted window screens at the American Visionary Arts Museum, at the base of Federal Hill. Take a trip down pop culture’s memory lane at Geppi's Entertainment Museum. Wander the cobbled streets of quirky, eclectic Fell's Point and dip into the Historic Ships of Baltimore (formerly the Maritime Museum).

Spend

Get beyond the stereotype malls to the Village of Cross Keys – a collection of local independent shops at Roland Park. Pick up ship memorabilia at Fell's Point, or a 17th-century Chinese snuff bottle at Howard Street's Antique Row. Posh Mount Vernon satisfies a taste for couture design as well as vintage clothes and jewellery – as does the university district of Hampden, though in a more thrifty way.

Get Out

Get your bearings in Federal Hill Park, from where you can see the whole layout of the city, or in April see what 80,000 tulips look like at Sherwood Gardens. Take a swim at Patterson Park's public pool or join in a volleyball game on Baltimore Beach. Water features a great deal in Baltimore, and the Inner Harbor is quay to all kinds of boat rides from dragon-shaped pedal boats to schooners.

Culture

The level of your brow is of no concern to Baltimoreans who may check out the opera one night and laugh their socks off at the Baltimore Comedy Factory the next. They can opt for Shakespeare, a symphony or visit the more off-beat multi-purpose arts centre, The Patterson, in trendy Canton. There's an African-American community theatre and umpteen bars with live music or comedy acts, and you'll be tripping over outdoor festivals during the summer.

Eat & Drink

Crabs rule Baltimore and crab houses abound, particularly in the Inner Harbor and Fell's Point areas. When you're ready to lay down your mallet and bib, stick a pin in a street map of Little Italy for great pasta. But don't stop there – Baltimore is known for its ethnic diversity and has cuisine to match, from Afghan to Thai.

New Perspective

Go and get a 360° view of the Inner Harbor from the 27th-floor of the World Trade Center, the world's tallest pentagonal building. Or you can make like Babe Ruth and feel the cheers in Orioles Park stadium while standing in the dugout on a tour.

Prepare

Prepare

Yachty shoes and sunscreen in summer (the opposite in winter) and a good appetite for crab will get you far, as will a laid-back attitude and sense of fun. Slip a volume of Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist into your pocket, to get a feel for Baltimore before you arrive.

Baltimore Year

Join the festivities of the Preakness Triple Crown in May, for horse racing and then some. Relax to the cool sounds of the Baltimore Blues Festival in June. Celebrate art in July with the three-day Artscape and food in January and again August during Baltimore Restaurant Week. Get all literary and stop Edgar Allan Poe turning in his Baltimore grave by helping maintain the Book Festival in September. Greet the autumn at the Fell's Point Fun Festival in October – family activities with a carnival atmosphere.

Public Holidays

New Year's Day (1 Jan), Martin Luther King Jr Birthday (Jan), Presidents' Day (Feb), Good Friday (Mar/Apr), Memorial Day (May), Independence Day (4 Jul), Labour Day (Sep), Defenders' Day – commemorates the War of 1812 against British Canada (12 Sep), Columbus Day (Oct), Veterans' Day (Nov), Thanksgiving Day (Nov), Christmas Day (25 Dec).

Weather

Being on the water means the weather can be changeable, but it also helps to keep things cool during Baltimore's hot and humid summers when temperatures average at 31ºC. Spring and autumn are best, when temperatures reach a comfortable, mild 15ºC and the flora is at its most vibrant. Winter temperatures drop to around 0°C, and snow makes an occasional visit in January and February.

Electricity

120V AC, 60 Hz, two and three-pin plugs are standard.

Dialling Code

+1 (national), 410 or 433 (Baltimore) + seven-digit number.

Money

US dollar (US$) is the currency.

GMT

GMT -5 (GMT -4 in summertime).

Baltimore Tourist Info

VisitBaltimore website

Fit In

Leave your tiara and ball gown, or your top hat and tails at home, because casual is the Baltimore look, be it shorts and T-shirt or designer linen suit. Jean-Paul Gaultier's nautical look wouldn't go amiss.

Get Around

Get Around

Hop across Baltimore's sheltered harbour in a water taxi from centre point Inner Harbor, or time travel on a walk through its 18th and 19th-century neighbourhoods.

It's tempting to just stay centrally in the Inner Harbor, but don't miss the Victorian townhouses of sophisticated Mount Vernon to the north, the maritime history of Fell's Point (east), or the trendy factory warehouse conversions and row houses of Canton (further east). Hike up to Federal Hill Park (south) for views of the busy harbour or to identify the patchwork of individual neighbourhoods. The park is also within walking distance of Camden Yards (west), home of Oriole Park, where Baltimore's famous baseball team gets the crowd on their feet.

Water taxi

Curved around the Patapsco River that feeds into Chesapeake Bay, it's no surprise that Baltimore's transport system involves messing around in boats. Distinctive blue-and-white water taxis dot the bay, and can whisk you off to any of the 14 landings encompassing more than 30 attractions, from Fort McHenry to Fell's Point.

Foot

Walking is one of the best ways to see the city, as it's compact and easy to navigate. Each neighbourhood connects with the next, and you will be surprised how much ground you can cover in a day. The best way to experience the Inner Harbor is to follow Harborwalk, a 7.5-mile path that follows Baltimore Harbor from the base of Federal Hill at the southern end to Canton Waterfront Park.

Metro

The Metro system is an easy-to-use, single-line subway, which takes in the city's main areas. It operates from the Owings Mills business and shopping complex, going through the heart of Downtown Baltimore's business, shopping and sightseeing districts.

Light Rail

The Light Rail runs above ground through the heart of Downtown Baltimore, past Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium at Camden Yards, to Cromwell Station/Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County. It also serves BWI Airport and Amtrak's Baltimore Penn Station.

Bus

There is an extensive bus network that links in with the Metro system. In addition, hop-on hop-off tour buses can transport you to the main sights.

Transport Tips

A Day Pass gives you unlimited travel on local buses, Light Rail, and the Metro subway. You can also buy a Day Pass for unlimited travel on the water taxis.

Time Travel

Salute the flag in the 1793 home of Mary Pickersgill. She made the Star-Spangled Banner that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words of the US national anthem. This was after troops at Baltimore's Fort McHenry repulsed the British, in one of the most important battles of the War of 1812. Discover one of many ways Baltimore helped slaves escape to the north at the Civil War Museum, housed in one of the US's oldest surviving railroad stations.

Baltimore Transport Link.

Maryland Transit Administration website

Highlights

Highlights

Once a busy, international port second only to New York's Ellis Island for immigrants, Baltimore's Inner Harbor now packs in big-city attractions with small-town ease.

Go head-to-head with a dolphin or shark at the National Aquarium, or get inside the human body – literally – at the Maryland Science Center. Both are in Baltimore's Inner Harbor where you can't miss the 1850s USS Constellation, the US's last sail-powered warship (finally decommissioned in 1955). Or head out to Fort McHenry, birthplace of the US national anthem. And you can poke around the old warehouses on the docks, now part of the Frederick Douglas-Isaac Myers Maritime Park.

Get your art history in a nutshell at the Walters Art Museum, or – for a more local approach – the American Visionary Arts Museum shows off the city's penchant for painted window screens. If the kids are bored by museums, bribe them with a trip to Maryland Zoo in Baltimore or the kid-powered museum at Port Discovery. There you can let them loose on the three-storey tree-house, or help them try to decipher hieroglyphics and search for lost tombs. Save a visit to one of the country's oldest cathedrals – the Basilica of the Assumption – till after dark, to see the external lighting illuminate its magnificent dome.

Sightseeing Tips

Both the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art are now open to the public free of charge for the first time in two decades. To save time waiting in line, and a little cash too, check out the Baltimore Harbor Pass. It offers multiple entrances and discounts.

Content provided by Frommer's Unlimited © 2009, Whatsonwhen Limited.