Meet the Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway Alliance

The Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay retains a deep sense of time and authentic character of place—where the interdependence between people, land, and water has played out through generations and remains on full display today. Few places in the Mid-Atlantic Region are as unspoiled as this.

Life here is shaped by proximity to the Chesapeake Bay, North America’s largest estuary. Located on the Delmarva peninsula, the rural communities of Maryland’s Eastern Shore feature a mix of historic small-town charm and industries reliant on the resources of the waterways and landscapes. The geographic isolation and dependency on nature has given rise to unique cultures of people who call the Eastern Shore region home. The Chesapeake Country All-American Road is a nationally significant travel route that offers an epic journey through this tidewater landscape. Here, century-old farms, working waterfronts, historic town centers, and protected natural areas provide residents and travelers with opportunities to deepen their awareness and understanding of the region’s unique history and traditions, experience the bounty of the Bay, feel a slower pace of life, and make new memories with family and friends.

The Chesapeake Country All-American Road is a federally designated National Scenic Byway (Byway) that stretches 419 land miles from Chesapeake City to Crisfield (plus 12 nautical miles to Smith Island), and east to Snow Hill. It is a network of scenic roads and historic travel routes through the extraordinary landscapes and waterways of Maryland’s Upper, Mid, and Lower Eastern Shore. It consists of a main Byway route (spine), along with numerous Byway branches
and sidetracks that together provide a unique experience of the Eastern Shore’s working waterways and landscapes, and a window into the region’s unique tidewater folklore and folklife.

The tourism offices of nine counties (Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Caroline, Dorchester, Wicomico, Worcester, and Somerset) collaborate with three heritage areas—Stories of the Chesapeake, Heart of the Chesapeake, and Beach to Bay—through the Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway Alliance (Byway Alliance) to manage the Byway.

The compelling and unifying story of this nationally-significant travel route is visible and told at dozens of culturally-significant sites and recreation backdrops owned and managed by cooperating federal, state, and local agencies, along with numerous private organizations and landowners. Many of the interpretive and visitor contact opportunities affiliated with the Byway are interpretive opportunities that stand on their own as significant features—museums, historic sites and communities, wildlife refuges, and trails, for example—yet collectively depict the unique character embodied by the Chesapeake Country All-American Road.