Pocomoke River State Park, Md

I am so lucky to have a daughter that likes to go camping for her birthday. We always try to pick a place with water so we can swim. This year has been challenging because of COVID. We usually go all over the east coast, but this summer we stuck much closer to home. Since we were hanging out in Maryland this summer, we thought it would be fun to re-experience it’s state parks. We have participated in Park Quest before, so this was a great opportunity to do it again. When deciding where to go for the special “Birthday Camping Trip”, we decided on Pocomoke River State Park.

We had camped here before, but it has been a long time. The campsites were nice, although a little closer together then some other state parks. The bath houses at the campground were clean and had nice showers. Before COVID, we had been to the nature center and really liked it. Unfortunately, it is currently closed, as is the pool, camp store, and boat rentals. There is only only place to swim nearby (it’s about 20 minutes). Public Landing is a small little public beach. The girls were not super impressed with it. There is no place that we could find along the river that they could swim (and believe me, we looked!). That was disappointing. Chincateague is about 45 minutes away, so we went there so go swimming. Unfortunately, we had the dogs with us and there are no dogs allowed. We drove from there to Assateague (about 1.5 hour drive). When we got there it was packed! We didn’t even get out of the car and just went back to the campsite. We did make it back to Chincateague without the dogs, and that too was packed, so we turned around. Swimming was apparently not to be. 

We did find a little gem that we all enjoyed, and that was Furnace Town Historic Site. It is about 20 minutes form the campsite. I was not hopeful that 4 teen/pre-teen girls would find this interesting, but they actually did! We spent over an hour there and probably would have stayed longer, but it was wicked hot. When we went, there was no admission charge (they were just asking for donations). The little store was open and the woman that was working there was very nice. We were also allowed to bring the dogs, which is always a good thing for us. The kids really liked the one little house that held many things that they could pick up. 

If you are looking to swim, I would find another place. If you are looking for boating or fishing and a quiet campground, this is a great place to go.