The first time there, we thought we had a great campsite, but we walked and made note of all our other choices if ours wasn't going to be available the following year. You can't pin point a certain camp site due to the every changing sands due to wind. We also drove around and enjoyed the bay side. Yes, we saw horses both times & they're beautiful and fun to see. I'm sure you can't time it, but it was VERY windy over Labor Day weekend, despite sand stakes for the tent. Weather was perfect and the water swimmable. The first time, we went in late Sept., the second time Labor Day.īoth were great. We made reservations to camp on the sand side when the reservations opened - about 6 months in advance. I’d recommend bringing some lawn chairs to sit and relax. It was thrilling to see one run from about 100 yards to join them. We parked in the lot and walked a short distance to the beach and saw a grouping of 5 horses. Those folks looked like they were having a ball, mist with chairs and picnics. I wished we’d had a 4wd so we could have purchased a permit to allow us to drive onto the sand for the day to enjoy the surf. Because we were active duty military we were able to get into the park for free but there is a ranger entrance for fees to enter. They have put up temporary portable bathrooms in the parking lot. The displays at the Visitors Center are closed due to COVID as well as the bathrooms. We visited during the off-season and I found it more crowded than I would have thought. What a great trip from nearby Ocean City where we were vacationing! Best of all, there is a Food Lion grocery store on the way so you can pack a picnic lunch to enjoy while in the park. Obviously the winter is not the season for this but it provided a calm sensation that we were both looking forward to. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the beach and other areas. Also be cautious of the speed limits in the park, as horses and bikers/runners are out and about in abundance. The horses aren't meant to be fed by humans as it increases their dependence on outside food sources away from their habitat. These are wild animals that can kick and bite, yet parents were encouraging their young children to get close to the animals for photos. Please be cautioned though, the behavior we witnessed there was far below what the Rangers and normal people expect. We continued on and much to my joy and my wife's shock, we found roughly 6-8 horses in that area. A couple told us that there were often horse sightings at the end of the park's designation near the parking lot. Then we saw a crowd of people so we knew we'd be seeing something and one horse was grazing on the side of the road. As we drove for 5 minutes after entering the park officially (the pay station is a little further in past the visitor center over the bridge) we hadn't seen anything. Much to our dismay, the Rangers on duty said due to the season there was a good possibility we wouldn't see any horses due to hiding in the brush on the side of the road. The visitor center has several displays on the ecosystem, the horses, and conservation. We started at the visitor center to stamp our passports and browse the gift shop (above standards for NPS sites). We arrived around 11 in the afternoon to a windy and crowded parking lot, however it was roughly 65 degrees in late December. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Ocean City which was roughly 15 minutes from the entrance to the National Seashore. We were originally planning on doing this trip over the summer, but you could imagine (or maybe you can't) how much less expensive this was to do during the winter. We love visiting the National Park sites and I was intrigued by the possibility of seeing the wild horses. After Christmas, my wife and I decided to get away for a night and settled on Assateague Island National Seashore.
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