Where: Cumberland, Maryland
When: year-round
If you like: arts and culture, the outdoors and sports
Why you should go: Take it from Brian Gilbride, who fell in love with Cumberland the first time he visited. He was finishing the Great Allegheny Passage, a 150-mile bike trail that connects Pittsburgh to the western Maryland city, and when he rolled in early one morning, he couldn’t believe what he saw. “It’s this perfect little town, like a time capsule. The architecture’s beautiful. Why had I never heard of this place?”
Twelve years later, he and his business partners are set to open the new Wills Hotel in a redbrick Italianate building. His timing couldn’t be better. Cumberland, a mountain destination dating to the colonial era, has just wrapped up a $17 million downtown revitalization project that has already attracted more than two dozen restaurants, shops, and other new businesses—a revival built on history. Once Maryland’s second-largest city, Cumberland acted as a transportation hub; it was the terminus of the C&O Canal, now a National Historical Park with a towpath trail stretching 185 miles east to Washington, D.C. It was also the start of the National Road, America’s first federally funded highway, which was authorized by Thomas Jefferson.
“We were an industrial area, but the industries are gone,” says mayor Ray Morriss. “This is sort of our rebirth.” Not only is Cumberland the meeting point for the cycling trails that connect Washington to Pittsburgh, it’s also home to the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad and neighbors Wills Mountain State Park, which adds access to climbing and kayaking.
G&G tip: The new Wills Hotel, co-owned by Gilbride, has twenty rooms, a bike room for cyclists to store and clean their two-wheelers, and a restaurant and second-floor terrace. It’s the perfect landing spot for parents of students at nearby Frostburg State University, and families seeking a getaway.
Larry Bleiberg is a Virginia native and past president of the Society of American Travel Writers. He served on a Pulitzer Prize–winning team and has won ten Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards. He has contributed to the BBC, National Geographic, The Washington Post, CNN, Fodors, Afar, AARP, and Atlas Obscura, among others. A former travel editor of the Dallas Morning News and Coastal Living, he’s also the founder of CivilRightsTravel.com, a guide to visiting historic sites from the civil rights movement.
