A traveler's guide to Baltimore Maryland

If you are flying to Baltimore, chances are you will arrive at the local airport known as the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (or abbreviated as BWI). When you arrive at the airport and it is your final destination, you should collect your baggage and proceed to immigration clearance. Once you are ready to see Baltimore, you can proceed to taking ground transportation. There are number of ground transportation options at the airport:

• train
• bus
• shuttles
• taxies

A Taxi sign

A taxi in Baltimore

As you may expect, you will pay more for riding a tax than other types of ground transportation options mentioned above. You can easily tell taxies apart from other vehicles because they are clearly marked as "taxi." Taxis are equipped with meters to register your fare to your destination.

In addition to total taxi fare, it is customary to pay a tip. The tip is an additional 10 to 15 percent amount of the fare. So if your fare is $20, the tip is about $2 to $3.

Another choice of ground transportation is car rental. Car renting is available by day, weekend, week, and even month. If you want to rent a car, you will need to go to the Car Rental Facility. It is located on:

7432 New Ridge Rd
Hanover, MD 21076

You don't need to hire a taxi service or pay the bus fare to get to the rental facility because free shuttle service is available to carry customers between the rental facility and the airport. The shuttle service is every 10 minutes or so.

There are number of car rental agencies at this facility:

Car rental choices at the BWI Airport include: National, Enterprise, Dollar Car Rental, Hertz, Avis, Thrifty, Alamo, and Budget.

The following table shows contact information for above mentioned rental companies:

Please note many car rental companies require the driver to be at least 25 year of age. So if you are under this age, you may not get a rental car.

If you are looking to travel by train, realize going in train in Baltimore is not as convenient as railway systems in Europe or other places. Metro Subway or Light Rail runs within Baltimore. So for local travel in Baltimore use Metro Subway or Light Rail. For travel outside of Baltimore, use the MARC Train. You can find more information about these train services from Maryland Transit Administration (MTA). By the way, Amtrak provides rail service to destinations across the US. See Amtrak's website for more information.

Staying at a hotel

If this is a short-term stay, you may consider using a hotel. There are number of hotel minutes away from the BWI Airport:

Hotel name	Telephone number	Website
Comfort Inn BWI Airport	(410) 789-9100	www.comfortinn.com
BWI Airport Marriott	(410) 859-8300	www.bwiairportmarriott.com
Sheraton International Hotel On BWI Airport	(410) 859-3300	www.bestbwihotel.com
Hilton Baltimore BWI Airport	(410) 694-0808	www.baltimoreairport.hilton.com
Comfort Suites BWI Airport	(410) 691-1000	www.comfortsuites.com
Embassy Suites Hotel Baltimore-at BWI Airport	(410) 850-0747	www.embassysuites.com

In general, hotels offer you number of complimentary options for your pleasure, business or both. The options include but not limited to:

• swimming pool,
• free parking,
• shuttle service,
• high speed internet access,
• flat screen TV,
• free breakfast,
• and so on.

Make sure you take a movement to call or check the hotel's website to learn all of the options available to their guests.