Ask a Huntingtown neighbor what they did last weekend and the honest answer is usually "drove somewhere." South to Solomons for the boardwalk. North to Annapolis for dinner. West to Prince Frederick for anything with a parking lot. The town sits in the geographic middle of Calvert County and gets treated like a place you pass through on the way to a better one.
That reflex is the thing worth unlearning this summer. Between Kings Landing Road and Smoky Road, Huntingtown owns roughly 1,260 contiguous acres of Patuxent River shoreline, marsh, meadow, and woods — more usable public land than either Solomons or Chesapeake Beach can put in front of you. The town's real summer program is already here. Most residents just haven't walked all of it.
The Patuxent Side Nobody Talks About Enough
Kings Landing Park is the anchor, and the numbers behind it explain why it deserves a Saturday of its own before you drive anywhere else. It's a 260-acre property on the Patuxent River with hiking trails, a pool, picnic pavilions, an event hall, a fishing pier and river access for kayaking, canoeing and paddle boarding. The property line runs along Cocktown Creek on one side and the main stem of the Patuxent on the other, which is why the light on the pier at dusk looks like two different rivers meeting.
A few things worth knowing before you go:
- The pool is seasonal. Kings Landing Pool is managed by Calvert County Parks and Recreation Aquatics Division and is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. If you have kids and haven't used it, you have roughly eight more weekends this year.
- Boats are available on site. Visitors can rent kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddleboards on site in season, or bring their own. That matters because the nearest comparable public rental fleet is at Jefferson Patterson Park, forty minutes south.
- Tom Wisner Hall books up. The hall runs 2,400 square feet, seats up to 160, and rents at $500 per day plus a $100 refundable deposit. For a graduation party or a fiftieth-birthday dinner, it's the cheapest waterfront hall between Solomons and Deale.
- Hours shift in summer. The park stretches to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays after Memorial Day, which is what makes a post-dinner paddle actually possible in July.
The trail system is modest and honest about it. The signature loop is a 1.2-mile route that takes an average of 26 minutes to complete, with the top of the loop meeting an ascent of 82 feet, the most elevation gain of any trail in the area. This is not a place you go to punish yourself. It's a place you take a coffee, walk out onto the boardwalk over the marsh, and watch what the tide does to the light on the reed line.
The Trail That Isn't On AllTrails
Here is the piece most residents miss. Directly north of Kings Landing, across Cocktown Creek, is a separate holding: Huntingtown NRMA, over 1,000 acres managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources primarily for hunting. Locals call it "Smoky Road" after its access point at 2450 Smoky Road. It has no pool, no pavilion, no rental fleet, and no cell service worth counting on.
What it has is quiet. Over 170 species have been reported on eBird from Kings Landing Park, and over 195 from Huntingtown NRMA — the smaller, wilder tract holds the bigger bird list precisely because fewer people go. If you have ever wondered where the serious birders drive to from D.C. on a Saturday morning, the answer might be four minutes from your driveway.
Two rules for using the NRMA well:
- Go early. King's Landing Park doesn't open until 9 a.m., so if you're an early birder, visit the Huntingtown NRMA first because that's open 24 hours a day.
- Check the season. Huntingtown NRMA is an active hunting area. Be aware of hunting seasons and plan your visit accordingly. Summer is the safest window, which is another reason this piece belongs to July, not November.
Connecting the two properties is a water route most residents have never named. The Kings Landing to Cocktown Creek Water Trail runs along the Patuxent River shoreline and connects King's Landing Park with Huntingtown NRMA. There is also a spur water trail that goes up Cocktown Creek, through good marshland habitat. Put a kayak in at the Kings Landing launch, paddle north up the creek into the NRMA marsh, and you have crossed from one public property to another without touching a road. That is a rare thing in this county.
Route 4, Read Left To Right
The other half of a Huntingtown summer happens along Solomons Island Road, which is what everyone actually means when they say "town." Read it as a strip and the daily rhythm makes more sense.
Morning. The Lobby Coffee Bar at 6201 Solomons Island Road is the local answer to the drive to Prince Frederick for espresso. It has hosted book signings for local authors this year, including one benefiting End Hunger in Calvert County, which is the kind of Saturday-morning event you should actually walk into rather than scroll past.
Lunch. Two Mexican rooms sit within a few minutes of each other and are not interchangeable. Mexico Restaurant at 2520 Solomons Island Road is the sit-down room with the bar; Taqueria Don Jose at 3875 Old Town Road is the counter-service option a block off the highway. Plaza Mexico is the third variation for the household that has already argued about the first two.
Weeknight rain plan. Lord Calvert Bowling Center at 2275 Solomons Island Road runs QuarterMania Sunday afternoons from 4 to 7 p.m., with discounted games for wristband holders. If you have preteens and a rained-out pool day, this is the answer.
Late dinner. China King at 6200 Solomons Island Road stays open to 9 p.m. weeknights and later on weekends, which matters when you have paddled until sunset and no one wants to cook.
None of these are new. That is the point. Residents who default to the drive north often forget that the strip they pass twice a day contains a full week of dinner options.
The 2026 Wildcard
This year has a layer that a normal summer doesn't. The Calvert/Maryland 250 Club at Huntingtown High School is a student-led organization dedicated to educating the public about Calvert County's local history in conjunction with the United States' semiquincentennial anniversary in 2026. The club collaborates with public and private organizations to develop outreach and educational opportunities, conducts original research on historically relevant topics, and fosters cross-curricular partnerships both within the school system and across local and state communities.
That is not a school project the way school projects usually read. The Huntingtown High School Maryland/Calvert 250 Club will share new research on the Maryland 400 and their role in the Battle of Brooklyn and beyond. If your household includes anyone who has ever asked why so many Southern Maryland roads are named after Revolutionary War officers, this is the summer to catch one of their public sessions rather than wait for the Smithsonian version.
Add the smaller anchors and the calendar fills itself: an Open House at the Huntingtown Volunteer Fire Department at 4030 Old Town Road, sports-and-collectibles trading days at St. Nicholas Lutheran Church at 1450 Plum Point Road, and Hurricanes home games at 4125 Solomons Island Road once the fall schedule opens in August.
The Huntingtown summer works if you stop treating the town as a corridor and start treating it as a compass point. Kings Landing north, Route 4 south, Cocktown Creek east, Smoky Road west. Everything a resident needs for a weekend is inside that square.
That reframe is also, quietly, the argument for the town's real estate. A property in Huntingtown isn't valued because of what it is close to; it is valued because of what belongs to it. The Patuxent frontage, the NRMA acreage, the water trail, and the small commercial spine on Route 4 are the amenity package, and they don't show up on a listing sheet the way a pool or a finished basement does. Owners who understand that tend to price differently, sell differently, and buy differently.
If you are thinking about what your Huntingtown address is actually worth this year, or what a move within the town might look like without giving up the Patuxent side, The Beckman Group works this micro-market week in and week out. Let's Connect — Book an Appointment, and we'll walk the map together.
