Downtown Frederick, Maryland
Downtown Frederick is one of Maryland’s quaint gems.
My sister had been talking about driving all the way from Baltimore to Frederick for the longest while, so while I was on my gap year and she wrapped up her final pharmacy rotation, we decided that it was time to take the hike and make our way down for a day trip. From Baltimore County, depending on traffic, it can take anywhere from one hour to an hour and a half to make it to the historic district, but trust me it is a nice little day trip. We definitely want to make our way down sometime next year—we wouldn’t go often because of the distance—to bring our mother since we know she’d love it.
Frederick is a quaint spot, full of old Americana charm and artisanal shops, boutiques, and some chain stores (there is a really fancy Starbucks on the main drag). Lot of places to eat around these parts—we walked past a Japanese restaurant that smelled good, then there was a Cuban restaurant that caught my eye.
These are sit-down restaurants, so be prepared to spend about $20 for a meal unless you want to hunt down somewhere to grab a bite and eat. I, unfortunately, could not eat anything this trip due to an infected wisdom teeth, so I was in quite a bit of pain as I walked around the town.
Our first stop was Curious Iguana, a small bookstore located along the main strip. I definitely would have bought something from the store if I wasn’t completely broke and had room for books, but I don’t, so I took to mainly perusing the store. Support your local booksellers if you can! Independent bookstores are easily snuffed out by companies like Amazon, so if you can afford the higher prices support your local store instead of a massive corporation.
We also stopped in a store that essentially only sold stuff for nerds, where my sister bought a stuffed sloth. It was very soft and she kept stroking it, so I ended up telling her to just buy it. She ended up bringing that sloth to Hawaii, so it’s seen more of the world than many of its counterparts. My sister now aspires to take that sloth all over the world and eventually make a Tik Tok documenting its adventures.
Highly recommend going to the historic district on a warm day, then you can sit outside and eat. If we going to eat in the area, we agreed takeout would be nice (or sitting outside) and then going down to the waterfront park and sitting underneath a cherry tree to eat would’ve been the perfect scenario. The waterfront park is very scenic and ideal, the perfect scenario for a picnic. There’s a college area here, but it was fairly quite despite the large amount of college students wandering around.
My favorite stores in the historic district were the soda pop shop and the Spice & Tea Exchange. The soda pop shop just had a massive collection of soda pop bottles from all around the world, and I ended up picking up a black cherry cream soda. A lot of these sodas had an insane amount of sugar within them, so I was a bit weary, but it was fairly delicious (despite it majorly irritating my mouth). I also bought a hot dog, which was mediocre and a mistake because of my mouth.
I’ve been to other Spice & Tea Exchange stores (particularly the one in Tennessee) so I knew what I was getting into, but my sister and I picked up a tea strainer, Moroccan mint tea, and a berry tea. We’d never had the opportunity to make loose leaf teas, but now we’re addicted.
In Hawaii I bought even more (specifically green tea with apple, rose, and lychee pieces). I need to go back because the berry tea was absolutely delicious, but I ended up picking even more Moroccan mint tea for my sister. They also have a lot of spices, but I wasn’t interested in the ones I could find easily. Didn’t get any this trip, but I may eventually come back for some Harissa.
The history aspect of the area is also quite nice. Francis Scott Key was born in the neighborhood, so there are some plaques and statues dedicated to him. Quite a few buildings in classic American architecture (e.g. the white Roman columns, the red brick, etc.), but then you could tell the ancestry of the churches by their design. A more typical American church was obviously more English/Irish/Scottish ancestry, but then the Lutheran church just screamed German when you looked at it.
All in all, it’s a really nice area to wander around and just immerse yourself in. They have a Civil War Medicine History Museum, but it is only open on certain days. Frederick is a bit of a hike coming from Baltimore, so I would not recommend doing it often, but it is fairly decent to stop by and having a chill day in the shops to take in the views. I recommend it!
