Preservation Maryland

The eighth county on travel experts Diane and Jeff’s twenty-three county and Baltimore City exploration of Maryland was Howard County. Their approach continues to be outside adventuring and seeing different parts of history, preservation, and adaptive reuse.

From Diane and Jeff’s Travelogue

My husband Jeff and I put together a general guide for the day and used a lens of being outdoors, seeing more of landscape preservation through trails, conservancies, preserves, and finding some adaptive reuses of Maryland’s many railroad lines into trails.Of course, we also look for ways to buy, eat and drink local where we can while the COVID-19 virus is still restricting what we can do safely.

Howard County was originally part of Anne Arundel county and became the 21st of Maryland’s 23 counties in 1851. Before European settlers, it was the farming and hunting grounds of Native Americans. The county was predominately agricultural until 1966, when construction began on Columbia. In our first tour of the county, we spent time in Columbia, seeing a lot of mid-century modern, then explored historic Ellicott City. In this tour we crisscrossed the county to discover for ourselves other parts we had not seen before. Come along for another fun adventure! 

First Day Hikes are a great way to start the New Year in a fun and healthy way. Maryland Park Service rangers, staff, and volunteers will lead more than 30 hikes on public lands and state parks New Year’s Day.

Preservation Maryland applauds Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones for the creation of the new State Park Investment Commission. With visitorship reaching all-time highs in the last year, there has also been an unprecedented strain on the current state parks and their resources. Chaired by former Governor Parris N. Glendenning, the new commission will be tasked with making recommendations for improvements of current parks and the need for new parks in “recreational deserts.”

In the third blog post of the Maryland road trip series, travel experts Jeff and Diane navigated history in St. Mary’s County. Their approach continued to be exploring the outdoors, seeking out trails, rails and different parts of history, as well as preservation and adaptive reuse in the county.