While in Ocean City, we were able to drag the kids from boogie boarding and check out Assateague Island National Seashore, which is famous for its wild horses! I was wondering if we would actually get to see any horses, but there were many to see, a couple up close too! I guess the horse poop everywhere should have been my clue that it wouldn’t be hard to see some horses. The first turn out/viewing area on our drive had a herd of them together.
When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw one just wandering around. It went to the outdoor showers first and got a drink of water. It then wandered around the parking lot checking out all the cars. My kids thought it was quite amusing. We kept our distance from the horses (as ALL the signs warn!), but there were many that were getting WAY too close (shaking my head!)
You can sit and play on the beach and in the water – there are lifeguards on duty! Maybe next time we’ll take an afternoon to play on the beach there! There are a few short trails that you can hike, but otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot of hiking to do. If you are wanting to take some of these trails, take BUG SPRAY! We did not have any and were eaten alive! It was horrible. Take bug spray, you’ll thank me! (on my list for next time!)
It doesn’t take long to get here from Ocean City and well worth the short drive to see the horses. We just went to the National Seashore part, but there is also a State of Maryland park area (we have a Pass for the National Parks, so it didn’t cost us… I’m not sure of the cost of the Maryland part). There is also an area in Virginia, but you can’t get to it from the Maryland side of the island in a car. The parts you can get to via car are very limited.
Your kids can also earn their Junior Ranger badge. Probably the main reason the kids were willing to leave their boogie boarding and go. You can’t print it out beforehand online, so you must visit in person. We knew that we wouldn’t be done with the books before they closed, so they gave us the address to mail them in. They mailed the badges back to us very quickly – one of the quickest turnarounds of all the parks we’ve mailed in!
