Visitors will now need a pass before entering Sandy Point State Park in Anne Arundel County during peak times.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources began its day-use parking pass reservation system at Sandy Point State Park and Washington County’s Greenbrier State Park May 19, according to WTOP News. Reservations through the Maryland State Parks website were required as of Saturday during Memorial Day Weekend.
“The goal of this new day use reservation system is making our parks more welcoming and accessible to all,” Maryland Park Service Director Angela Crenshaw says in a news release. “By allowing visitors to plan ahead, we’re helping families make the most of their time outdoors — with less stress and more confidence that they’ll have a great day in our state parks.”
The new day-use reservation program, which requires visitors to get a pass online, will be in effect between Memorial Day and Labor Day, on weekends and on holidays. Visitors can make a reservation as early as seven days in advance of a visit. Once a visitor makes a reservation, they can modify or cancel that reservation through 8 a.m. the day before the planned visit.
Each reservation provides visitors with a QR code that will be scanned at the park for entry. Visitors without a pass will not be permitted to enter.
Annapolis’ Sandy Point State Park isn’t the only park to soon see a reservation system.
“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, [later this summer],” Tim Hamilton, Maryland Park Service’s business and marketing manager, tells WTOP News earlier this month.
These parks are the ones that park rangers close regularly due to overcrowding, he adds.
This new system is a response to an influx of visitors to both parks.
“We have a lot of popular parks, and people love us, but we’re getting kind of loved to death,” Hamilton continues.
In 2019, the state’s parks saw record attendance with 14 million visitors. That number skyrocketed during the pandemic — 22 million visitors went to Maryland state parks in 2020, according to Hamilton. This increase resulted in long lines to enter the parks and visitors getting 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,” Hamilton says. “We just had to do something to alleviate that.”
The goal of the reservation system is to utilize technology to help visitors avoid long lines and prevent people from being turned away from the parks during weekends.
