Maryland

Maryland's identity runs through blue crabs and the Chesapeake Bay, which shapes both its geography and its food.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor has been rebuilt into a walkable waterfront with an aquarium and museums, a contrast to the city's older row-house neighborhoods further out. Annapolis, the capital, keeps a colonial-era downtown intact along its own harbor, home to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Crab houses along the eastern shore are as much a local institution as any museum.