Calvert Cliffs State Park, Lusby

Really beautiful walk to the beach with dirt paths along with raised boardwalks. Areas to sit and rest along the red trail to the beach. Beach area pretty narrow with lots of rocks for about 10 feet off shore. Would recommend bringing water shoes to make walking out to the sandy part more comfortable. The water is very shallow even out to about 25 meters off shore. Water temperature was nice (I went in the July). People come with special tools (i.e. strainers, shovels, etc.) to look for the shark teeth and fossils. Only reason I gave 4 stars is that the orange to white trail was hard to follow around. There were trail markers but no accompanying maps. So, it made it a little confusing to know when to turn to white to get back to the parking lot. Otherwise, $5/car for in state, $7/car for out of state. Nice folks upon arrival. Nice folks to engage with along the trails and the beach.

We walked the red trail to the beach, and also hung out at the playground by the parking lot. The playground is super fun. Not great to babies + older kids (the baby swing is far from the other swings, so if your kids all like to be pushed at the same time like mine do then you are out of luck). It is more geared for older kids, lots of good climbing opportunities. The red trail is beautiful, and the beach is great. Lots of broken oysters and other shells. If you have water shoes, bring them. The trail itself winds through the woods, then a marsh, and finally gets you to the beach. I only took off one star for the lack of maps. I couldn't find any map of the park online, there wasn't a ranger building or anything for me to get a map, and the map of the trails I found online is just a topographic map maybe? Overall, not very good maps.

Lovely park. Be warned the trip to the beach is almost 2 miles and the path is natural. So that means roots, trees, and occasional rock. It is possible to get a stroller through but there will be effort involved. The beach has tons of shells and the favorite shark tooth so shoes are recommended. When the tide is high there is only 4-10 feet of sand (depending on location).

The playground here was adorable. Lots of recycled tires built into structures for climbing, but I didn't get any photos. The red trail was great to hike with dog and elementary age kid; lots of benches for resting throughout and oodles of bridges over a meandering stream. Be we didn't make it to the beach on this trip, but sytill be trying again to make it to the beach early to watch the sun climbing into the sky and enjoy the salt water ecosystem. We really enjoyed spotting all of the beech and holly trees, and the tiniest of ferns growing among moss was a joy to see!

It's basically completely closed. You walk 2 miles to the beach, but there is only about 100 yards of beach open. ALL of the cliff areas (you know, where all the cool fossils are) are COMPLETELY CLOSED to the public... Of course, they don't tell you that before taking your money at the gate. Since only a tiny beach is open, it was super crowded with people and dogs. Would be nice if instead of closing the cliff areas to everyone, they just put a "WARNING" sign like most other outdoor natural areas do. Its an eroding cliff... OF COURSE ITS DANGEROUS! But does that mean we need to close it for everybody? They should just close this park for good if they aren't going to let you see the cliffs. Its literally called Calvert Cliffs but you can't go near the cliffs. Total waste of a Satuday!