Visiting Kent County Maryland

Welcome to Delightful Destinations.  For our first episode I'm speaking with Shalyn Boulden.  She's the tourism manager for Kent County, MD.  Shalyn is a born and raised Kent County resident.  She's spent her whole life there and knows all the ins and outs of the best things for visitors to know.

We discuss some of the highlights of the county as a whole, and what people love about it.  We also dive into some of the big upcoming events for Kent County, including July 4th celebrations, the Chestertown Tea Party Festival and more!

For more information about upcoming events in Kent County, please visit kentcounty.com

For more about host Jeff St. Pierre, you can follow him at instagram.com/stpierreonair

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hey, what's up everybody. Welcometo the first episode of Delightful Destinations.
My name is Jeff Saint Pierre.Delightful Destinations is a show designed to give
people an inside or deeper look atvacation spots around Maryland, the mid Atlantic,
and other areas. I hope isto speak with people who know these
areas best and inspire you for yournext trip. We're kicking things off with

(00:25):
the conversation about Kent County, Maryland. Kent County is located on what is
commonly referred to as the eastern shoreof the state. It's on the eastern
side of the Chesapeake Bay. KentCounty is essentially a peninsula, so water
is a big part of the area'sculture and history. There are many events
throughout the year that highlight that history, some of which we discussed today.
If you're into hiking, fishing,boating, crabbing, or just being outside

(00:48):
with the wildlife of the region,Kent County is definitely a spot for you.
Today I'm speaking with Shllon Bolden,the tourism manager for Kent County.
She's a lifer, born and raisedin the area. I can't think of
anyone better to discuss the rich cultureand highlights of what visitors can enjoy when
they make a trip over. Ifyou want to find out more information about
Kent County and what it has tooffer, you can visit Kentcounty dot com.

(01:08):
There's a full events list there aswell as information on different things you
can do around the county. Pleaseenjoy my conversation with Shallon Bolden Shllon a
pleasure to talk with you. You'rethe tourism manager at Kent County Economic and
Tourism Development. Tell me a littlebit about what you do over there in
Kent County, Maryland. So Iam born and raised in Kent County.

(01:29):
I've never left as the tourism manager. I really just want to market the
county and get people to come hereto visit it and fall in love,
like I have spent my whole lifejust being in love with this area.
People come here from all over theplace. They come from the city and
the hustle and bustle. In thisplace, it's like the eternal escape.
You never have to worry about traffic. It's not a big city. There's

(01:52):
not a lot of people, aton of small businesses, a lot of
mom and pop shops if you will. It's all very hometown living, a
ton of farms, agriculture, veryrural area. And we are also bordered
by three bodies of water around theKent County, So there's a Sasapress River
on one side, the Chesapeake Bay, and then the Chester River. I

(02:12):
was actually surprised, and forgive mefor my ignorance, because I've lived in
Maryland now for seventeen years, butall of that has been either closer to
DC or Baltimore, so I don'thave a wild understanding of what goes on
on the other side of the BayBridge. But I was looking at the
map of Kent County and I waslike, this is basically a peninsula here.
It is, so basically we areDelaware on one side and then three
bodies of water on the other.If you get to rock Hall, you're

(02:36):
in the Chesapeake Bay and Chester River, and then of course Chestertown sits along
the Chester River. And then wehave towns such as Galina, Georgetown,
Betterton, Still Pond that are allalong the Sasapress River, and Betterton Beach
is on the Chesapeake Bay. Ialso have to admit embarrassingly that I always
assumed that Kent Island was in KentCounty, and I was very wrong when

(02:57):
I googled it today. Yes,yep, we get that. We get
that phone call quite a bit wherepeople are coming to Kent Island and we
have to say, oh no,you have to call Queen Ann's County.
There are neighbors who we adore.We work very well together. We have
a very close partnership and working relationshipwith Queen Ann's. We piggyback a lot
of things off each other. Butyes, Ken Island is and also known
as Kent Narrows or Stevensville or Graysonvilleis in Queen Anne's. You go one

(03:19):
county up and you run into KentCounty. So I'm realizing after I look
that up, and I'm looking atthe map, and I think I've never
been into Kent County before, whichI mean, I can't say it blows
my mind because I'm sure there's lotsof places in Maryland that I have not
been, but I just knowing howmuch we've talked about it, knowing the
rich history of it, I'm sosurprised that my travels have never taken me

(03:40):
into your beautiful county. I thinkit's very much like a hidden gem.
Yeah, you know. And it'sinteresting because we also have the highway,
you know, Route fifty turns intothree oh one that takes you to Delaware.
It runs right through Kent County.It runs right through with the town
of Millington the northern side of KentCounty, and I think people just kind
of flow by it and if theyjust were to make a left turn and

(04:00):
had to Chester Town, you know, they would get to see kind of
everything. So that is my job, is it trying to get people to
make that turn, or especially fromwhere you're from on the Western Shore,
when they come over at the bridge, they make that right on fifty to
head down sports the beaches instead ofbeing a left and head out through Queen
Ann's and into Kent and then fromthere you can go to Cecil on Harford
County, which also offer a tonof just rural, you know, things

(04:23):
to do along the Chesapeake Bay.It's so funny to me to hear people
in your position call us the WesternShore. Yeah, we're so used to
calling at the Eastern Shore. It'sjust so funny to hear it. And
we also say the bridge because they'reonly you know what, the Chestabeak big
bridge. I have to go acrossthe bridge. Yeah, which makes sense
because it would be the bridge foryou guys over there. That's true.

(04:44):
That's true. So what would yousay if you had to put your finger
on something, what would you say? Kent County is most known for I
think two things, probably, sooutdoor recreation is huge here just because of
where we sit and because of theamount of land that we have. It's
a ton of people come here forhunting. There's a bunch of guide services
at all for all different hunting,from deer hunting to waterfowl hunting, fishing's

(05:09):
big boating, hiking, bicycling,birding. We have a wildlife refuge that's
just over two thousand acres. EasternNeck Island National Wildlife Refuge is in rock
Hall. It has seven I thinkit's seven trails that people can hike and
explore. One. I was actuallydown there at this past friday came across
a really lovely black snake about aninch from my feet. So if you're

(05:30):
into that kind of stuff, Iwas not. I took off running from
it, but some people do enjoythat. But you can fish there,
you can you know, people doa ton of bird watching. There's I
think two hundred species of migratory birdsthat come in and out of the refuge.
It's kind of ran by the USFish and Wildlife Service. They have
used hunt days there, whether it'sdeer. They just had a turkey one
this past weekend. People can gofishing. There's rock fishing, catfishing,

(05:54):
the new blue catfish. There's abig, a big push to kind of
get rid of as many blue catas you can just because of how invasive
they are and they're kind of decimatingthem crab populations. There's plenty of places
for people to catfish here for bluecat and there's no limits on them,
so you can catch one, youcan catch thirty. I've just been learning
about that recently. I didn't knowanything about that. I don't know much

(06:15):
about the fishing and everything that goeson here in Maryland, but I've just
been reading about the blue catfish andit's mind blowing. I mean, it's
wild, and a lot of ourcharter boats, because the rock fish season
hasn't kicked off yet, have beentaking groups out to basically charter catfish.
So it's a great way for themto make more money kind of in the
off season, and people love it. I mean some of these blue cat
are you know, foot long,and some of them, I mean they're

(06:36):
absolute monsters. Wow. That isso. I went last weekend and tried
to catch some and didn't didn't farevery well, but I did get some
yellow catfish, so that was fine. No luck for you on the blue
catfish side. And then I thinkthe other thing with Kat is the events
that we have. Yeah, wehave so many events that happen every year.
They are annual events. They celebratethe culture, the history, or

(06:56):
they're just you know, something funto do. They go all year.
We have different things pretty much everymonth that are big events. They're fun
for the whole family to come.Yeah, I definitely want to talk more
about some of those events you havecoming up this summer. In particular,
I was trying to think about it. There was a time because if you
were to say your two biggest areas, would you say rock Hall in Chestertown?
Would those be the two? Likebig Chestertown. Chestertown is our county

(07:17):
seat, so that's kind of ourmain municipality. Brack Hall is probably second.
And then we also have Betterton,which has Betterton Beach, which is
a great beach, the town ofGallina, and the town of Mellington.
Okay, Chestertown I almost went toa few years back. There was a
Harry Potter festival that ran there,and I remember we were my wife and
I my now wife and I wereplanning on going, and then something came

(07:40):
up and we didn't go, Andthen I heard it ended up getting canceled
a couple of years ago and nolonger. Yeah, yeah, and they
didn't bring it back. I wenta few times. I'm a huge Harry
Potter fan, so yeah, itlooked beautiful. I we had all the
pictures and everything that I remember seeingabout it was like, Wow, we
really should go check this out.This is awesome. And unfortunately didn't make
it over, but Chestertown has beenon my list. I've heard so many
wonderful things about about that area thatit just it just seems like the perfect

(08:01):
place to go get away for aweekend. Yeah, it's a great place,
and we have plenty of shops,coffee shops, boutique shopping. The
downtown Downtown Historic District is also adesignated Arts and Entertainment District, so there
are art gallery studios, there's theGarfield Center for the Arts, the Kent
Cultural Alliance. We also have Ifyou go to the Chestertown Public Arts website,

(08:24):
there is a it was basically adonation. I don't know the entire
story, but in the last yearthere are public art pieces. There are
statues that have been placed all overdowntown Chestertown and kind of up High Street
a little bit. They were donatedto the town as a set. I
think there's over twenty and there arethese, you know, big statues that
have all the informations on the websiteand they're placed everywhere, and that has

(08:46):
gotten a big following of people thatwant to come and kind of check out
the arts and entertainment district the insidegalleries, but also be outside to get
to experience art where you're located inthe state. I'm wondering, who are
you trying to attract to that area, Like, as a tourism manager,
who are you trying to bring into Kent County. Ideally we want someone

(09:07):
who has never been here before sureto come here and love it. Geographically,
it's a great day trip for peopleor you know, a one night
trip or a long weekend trip.We're about an hour hour and a half
from Philadelphia and Baltimore, about afour hour drive from Pittsburgh. We are
right next door to Delaware. Youknow, if you're in Middletown, Delaware
River, you can be here infifteen twenty minutes into Kent County. If

(09:28):
you're down in the beaches, Lewis, for Hobeth, Fanwick, or even
Ocean City, we're about a twohour drive, so it's not far.
We're kind of in the middle ofeverything. I think about two hours from
DC, a couple hours from Virginia. Yeah, you kind of a pretty
good location. Honestly, we're ina great location. We're in the in
the middle of I mean, Isay, you know all the craziness that's
kind of around in a circle,you know, the Philly, the Baltimore

(09:48):
at the Pittsburgh, the DC.You know the big, big hustle and
bustle places, that's kind of tuckedin the center of it. That's kind
of how I used to explain whereI grew up. I grew up north
of Boston in New Hampshire, butjust north of Boston, and I would
tell people I'm like, I wasthirty minutes from Boston. I was an
hour from the best ski resorts inNew England, forty five minutes from the
beach. I mean, I wasreally like my town was situated in the

(10:09):
perfect place where you never had todrive more than an hour to get to
the best possible things that you couldfind. And that's kind of what I'm
picturing Kent County as right now,Like you've got all these options that are
really within reach, that they're nottoo far where it would, you know,
make you dedicate an entire weekend togo to the shore or something like
that, Like you could easily makeit happen on a day go, Yeah,
very easily. So tell me aboutsome of the things that are coming

(10:31):
up this summer. I know yougot a lot of great events. Chestertown
Tea Party probably the first big onethat's coming up, if I'm not mistaken,
that is the first big one thatis held into Chestertown, downtown Chestertown
area, and it's always on MemorialDay weekend. This year is actually the
two hundred and fiftieth year. Wellto celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth year
that Chestertown toss tea into the river, So they kind of people really don't

(10:54):
know the story, I don't think. But when Boston had their tea Party,
Chestertown also did the same thing.So this festival is a way celebrate
that. There's a reenactment where there'sthe schooner Sultana ship is out in the
Chester River dockted the foot of HighStreet and there are people dressed up in
costume and they dump tea into theChester River. There's a dinghy rafree there's
a parade, there's food vendors,music, a five k beerfest is held

(11:16):
at Wilmer Park. So it's abig, three day kind of festival.
So I find it so interesting becauseI had never heard of this aspect of
the tea party either. I justtold you I grew up in the Boston
area, so obviously that's a bigthing that what we learn about it in
school everywhere. But we also,you know, it was something that you
talked about a lot in that area. I think it's so funny because in
the time frame of when that happened, it wasn't like you had cell phones

(11:37):
to call people and say, hey, we're going to dump tea tomorrow in
the water. I love the planningthat must have gone into this to try
to organize it, and I don'treally I'm sure there is some a book
somewhere or something that explains how Chestertownfound out about it, but I do
know. The story is that inseventeen seventy four, Chestertown did this in
response to Boston's response to Parliament closingthe port of Boston. So somehow somebody

(12:01):
talked whether it was by horse oryeah, you know, the pony express,
and they figured out this was goingon and they had, you know,
they had the first dumping of thetea in Chestertown. And it gets
celebrated every year. It's a hugeevent. There are a ton of people
that come, kids, families,I mean, people of all ages come,
and people come from all over.Some come for just the day on
Saturday and do the parade and thereenactment. Some people are here, you

(12:24):
know, for the entire weekend.It sounds like a lot of fun.
I think that's definitely something to puton the calendar. That's again a Memorial
Day weekend this year. If you'relistening and you're interested in checking that out,
I imagine Fourth of July over thereis a big party too, because
you've got a lot of people thatlike to get out on the water,
and I have done fireworks on thewater before and they are awesome. So
yes, we have. Fireworks areheld every year in Chestertown. They're also

(12:46):
held in rock Hall and they're heldat Great Ove Marina. We also do
which is really one of my favoritethings. My dad was a commercial waterman.
So there's a day every fourth ofJuly. It's always held the Sunday
of fourth of July weekend. Thisyear held on the seventh. It's called
Waterman's Day. So it's a waythat we celebrate our watermen here. So
it's celebrated with basically a big partyat the rock Hall ballhead that sits at

(13:09):
the harbor on the bay. There'sa boat docking contest, anchor throwing contest
for kids and adults, food vendors, music. I mean, it's just
a whole day celebration, just celebrating, you know, our watermen and our
heritage and culture here and all themen you know and women that have gone
out and spend their lives working onthe water, which you should celebrate.
I mean, that is obviously ahuge piece of the culture over there.

(13:31):
Yeah, it's I mean, it'san entire way of life, the entire
way of life over here. Yeah, it's huge. We also have a
parade in rock Hall that's on thefourth of July every year that goes down
Main Street. And then after thatthere's a place that's called the Civic Center.
It's a big open space area ofgrass and rock Hall and it's just
filled with nothing but kids activities.There's bounds houses, music, food,
craft stations, and it's all freeof charge for the kids, you know

(13:54):
who want to come and check itout. It's awesome. I got a
three year old, so anytime Ihear kids' activities, I'm like, where
can I put her that she canget activities and free. You know,
when you hear kids and free,it's like, okay, that's that's good
keywords kids and free. That isperfect. They end up getting, you
know, overheated and guessed out andtired and miserable, and you leave you
don't feel like you've spent you've wastedmoney doing it, So I think it's

(14:15):
great. There's a lot of peoplethat come before we move on to I
know, you've got a couple ofother big events that kind of end the
summer and get into the fall there. But before we dive into that really
quick, I always used to associatecraft breweries with cities because that was just
the picture that I have. ButI've noticed even on the western Shore,
we've started to see a lot offarms open up breweries now, I would
imagine, and Ken County, you'vegot a lot of rural space. I

(14:37):
would imagine some folks have opened upsome nice wineries and breweries over there.
So we have quite a few wineries, and we have some distilleries in town.
So we have to at Alfred's Discilleryin Chestertown. Crow Vineyard in Kennedyville
is an actual I mean, it'sa working farm that was a working farm
forever and I think fifteen years agothey turned it into a vineyard. So
they have their you know, theirown tasting room and and the whole operation

(15:01):
there. They also have grass fedcattle there and they're still very much a
working farm. There's Lands Point Winery. We have Cassanelli Wines. So yes,
we do have quite a few vineyards, wineries, distilleries here. Yeah,
you certainly have a lot of options, all right, So what's coming
up here towards the end of thesummer anything else big. We got to
mention for Kent County. We havein rock Call every year. This is
the seventeenth year of Pirates and WinchesWeekend, So that's basically that is on

(15:22):
August ninth. From August ninth tothe eleventh, that is a big town
wide costume party. You walk downMain Street and Ferry Park, Beach and
roll Call and there's men and womendressed up like pirates and wenches. They
have costume contests water or buccaneer ballthey have at Watermends every year on a
craft dick. They have black BeardPirate costume contests like whoever can look like

(15:46):
black Beard the Pirate I guess wins, Treasure hunts for kids. There's music,
food, vendors, you know,drinking. It's just a very very
good time. We also have LegacyDay in Augusta which is in Chestertown every
year. That's August eighteen through thenineteenth. That is a very special event.
It celebrates the African American history andculture in Kent County. It is

(16:07):
actually hosted by Sumner Hall, whichis a museum in Chestertown. Sumner Hall
is one of only two remaining AfricanAmerican built gar halls left in the United
States, and one of them isright here in Chestertown. So that's a
pretty big a pretty big deal anda very very special space for us.
The event is held all downtown Chestertownfor those two days. I mean,

(16:29):
it sounds like there's no shortage ofthings to do in Kent County, that's
for sure. They're not. IActually, our office runs the county event
calendar on our website, and trustme, there is always We are always
updating and adding and managing and editingand putting new events on. There's always
things to do here. Let mecommend you on that really quick. Actually,
because I have done some research andlooking through different counties and different areas

(16:49):
for their upcoming events, and alot of the sites are not necessarily up
to date the way that I feellike they should be. Yours is spot
on. So way to go.All the work that you're put into it
is amazing and it kind of takesa village. The way that our system
is set up is that we have, you know, people submit their own
events to us. As soon asthey hit submit, it gets some an
email gets sent to our office tosomebody, and our team we you know,

(17:12):
read it over, just make sureit all looks okay, and approve
it and in real time it goesright on our website. I also take
that information and I create a monthlytourism newsletter that goes out the first of
every month that I pull the informationfrom that calendar and highlight upcoming events in
Kent County. So the first andevery month, if you're on that email
distribution list, you'll get an emailthat says you know eight different things that

(17:33):
you can do in Ken County withlinks one where to go for more information?
Perfect, well, shallon tell mewhere or tell everybody where they can
go to find out more information aboutKent County. You can visit Kencounty dot
com slash visitors. It's where we'llfind our calendar events, annual events of
a sign up link to sign upto our newsletter. Shalon Boldon, the
tourism manager at Kent County Economic andTourism Development Challenge, It is so great
to talk to you, so greatto learn more about Kent County, and

(17:56):
I will certainly be putting it onthe calendar to make my way out there
this summer. I think we'll belooking for some things to do with the
kiddo anyway, So hice a littledat trip across the bridge will be nice.
Please do let me go when you'recoming, Oh, perfectly will we'll
hit you up. Thank you againto Shllon Bolden, the tourism manager from
Kent County, Maryland. You canfind more details about Kent County start planning
your trip at Kentcounty dot com.Until next time, thank you for listening

(18:18):
to delightful destinations. My name isJeff Saint Pierre and we'll talk again soon