We spent the day in the Historic District of Sykesville, Maryland

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

It’s incredibly privileged to have the money to buy cute little treats and head out with people somewhere, so I’m forever grateful that I’m currently in a situation where I can afford such things. Sometimes I go hiking to offset the costs of doing fun stuff, other times I find myself a little over budget and have to eat out less when it comes to work lunches and whatnot. I don’t take any of this for granted!

Today’s blog post comes from a trip we took to Sykesville. I had no idea this little town existed next to Mt. Airy, although I used to play soccer around here when I was younger. My older sister had booked a teahouse though for us to go to with my sister, mother, and our cousin, so we bundled up and headed west of Baltimore to see what was up.

Let’s get into our brief excursion there!

The Kate Pearl Team Room in Sykesville is perfect for a friend or romantic date, or even just hanging out with family members and chatting.

The main reason we were headed out this way to go to the Kate Pearl Team Room. We arrived in Sykesville around 12 PM, which was a bit of a hike from where we were living at the time. It was an easy drive though from Baltimore, which makes this a good cute little day trip from Baltimore City and County area.

We met up with my cousin in the parking lot, which was surprisingly full. Turns out there was an event in the area where if you had booked a ticket in advance, you could go on a hot chocolate sampling adventure. We were so confused throughout our time there as to why so many people were walking around with matching mugs.

We were promptly seated at Kate Pearl Team Room towards the back. It is a bit cramped in this location, but it adds to the cozy decor and the vibes we had going on. We had ordered the second highest tea set available, which included a scone for everyone, a tomato soup, unlimited tea, little bites of cream cheese cucumber, cheese and strawberry tarts, sweets, and these little sandwiches with cheese and cranberry jam.

The first scone was good with the clotted cream and strawberry jam, but out of the food I thought the little bites and the soup were the best. We ordered five teas, one each, to start out with and passed them around the table. My personal favorites were the White Wedding and the Sweet Cherry Almond teas, neither of which I had ordered for myself to begin with.

I ordered a Purple Pizazz to try on the way out and that was pretty good, but got mixed reactions around the table. We spent about two hours here yapping and enjoying our teas, which made sense considering they spaced the food out so you would have time to chat with your companions.

I would come here again though! It was a really nice experience overall and I enjoyed it.

The Historic District is full of life, shops, and so many things to do in one little area.

Once we finished up with our tea, we spent some time wandering around the Historic District. It’s not that big, but there are quite a few places to eat and drink around here! We were stuffed because of our tea and snacks, and I didn’t end up eating again until later when I made my mom and I some sukiyaki at home with tofu puffs and enoki mushrooms.

Anyways, there are a bunch of cute little shops as well that you can wander in and out of. We only really went into the bookstore, where I enjoyed looking at the book covers as we strolled through. Because of the event going on in the town though it was a little too crowded, so even in the bookstore we were kind of elbowing people as we looked at the books and the selection they had.

We said goodbye to our cousin and headed home after that. I do want to come back to try the wine and bar spot that we walked past when heading out of Kate Pearl, but right now there was no way I could fit any more liquids in me.

Going home took an hour, but we all enjoyed this outing! I recommend having a cute little date night in the area with a friend or partner if you’re looking for something to do.

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