Several Maryland parks will require reservations starting this summer
Starting this month, you’ll need a pass before going to two popular Maryland State parks.
This comes as the Maryland Department of Natural Resources launches its day-use parking pass reservation system at both Greenbrier State Park in Washington County and Sandy Point State Park in Anne Arundel County on May 19.
“We have a lot of popular parks, and people love us, but we’re getting kind of loved to death,” said Tim Hamilton, business and marketing manager for the Maryland Park Service.
Hamilton said in 2019, Maryland’s state parks saw record attendance — 14 million visitors. But since then, the record has been shattered, including in 2020 amid the pandemic as 22 million visitors went to parks for a safe, outdoor escape from being stuck at home.
For Greenbrier and Sandy Point State Parks, that led to long lines of traffic waiting to get into the parks, and people being turned away.
“It’s just been getting worse and worse over the last few years, with people wanting to come in and us having to turn people away when we’re full. We just had to do something to alleviate that,” Hamilton said.
The Day-Use Reservation program will be implemented between Memorial Day and Labor Day, on weekends and holidays, and it requires visitors to go online and get a pass. Failure to do so means you will not get into the park.
Hamilton said other parks will see the reservation system put in place later in the year.
“We’re going to expand to Point Lookout and Newtowne Neck, which are both in southern Maryland, and North Point State Park, which is right outside Baltimore,” he said.
He said those parks are the ones rangers end up closing on a regular basis due to too many people showing up. Right now, Hamilton said, there are “no immediate plans” to expand to additional parks beyond the aforementioned.
Hamilton said once a reservation is made, people will be able to modify them through 8 a.m. the day before their planned visit. Each reservation will provide visitors with a QR code that will be scanned in order to get into the park.
The goal, according to Hamilton, is using technology will help avoid long lines and keep people from being turned away during their weekend adventures to the parks.