Allen Pond Park
3330 Northview Drive
Bowie, MD 20716
If you are from the Bowie area, you more than likely know this park. Sharing for anyone from other areas or anyone who may be new here (or maybe people like me who hadn’t been for years before I had kids 😂)
Allen Pond is a beautiful park! It has 2 large playground areas with several different play structures. The larger of the two playgrounds is called Opportunity Park – it was the nations first completely accessible playground 😱 built before there were even any ADA guidelines for creating accessible playgrounds. The entire play structure is designed to kids (and parents!) of all abilities can play. A friend sent me a link to an article explaining the history of the park – I had never heard all the background on the park before and it is a really amazing story (Click here to read!) The accessibility of this playground also makes it a great park to take young toddlers/early walkers who are just learning to play on playgrounds. There are long, wide ramps through the entire play structure so little ones can easily navigate and parents can follow them too!
Otherhighlights:
⭐️ 10 acre pond surrounded by a mostly flat, paved walking trail
⭐️ island accessible by bridge with natural trail and gazebo
⭐️ Paddle boat rentals – open Saturdays and Sundays from May 29-Oct. 6th from 1-7:30 pm. $10 for traditional boats and $15 for character boats (per half hour)
⭐️ tons of ducks, seagulls, geese and herons
⭐️plenty of picnic areas
⭐️floating dock
This is one of our favorite go-to parks! My girls love feeding the ducks/geese, riding bikes on the paved trail, running around in the gazebo, walking out onto the floating dock, and of course playing on the playground. We can easily spend a few hours here!
🚽 Bathrooms 🚽: Public restrooms open Memorial Day through Labor Day.
👩👧👦Solo w/ kids?👩👧👦: yes
🛒 Stroller friendly?🛒: yes
🦠Covid-safe🦠: can get pretty busy on the weekends, but I love that there are separate playground spaces so you can switch if one area gets to crowded.
🅿️Parking🅿️: Large parking lot
Maryland Kid Adventures 