The kids (ages 10 and 13) were asked their favorite part of our recent trip to Ocean City and both replied, “Assateague!”. The bugs view forgetting bug spray as a challenge and will 100% harass you for the oversight. Better to have the spray in your car and not need it than to leave it home. The bugs can be bad on Assateague depending on the breeze. The following night we came out and made a campfire on the Assateague beach. ![]() The ponies here are a different experience from what you get on the Chincoteague (Va) end of the island - though both are experiences worth having. Saw the ponies from the kayaks and also on the road in and out. We did a kayak ecotour with Assateague Outfitters one day (tremendous - worth every $.01). Obviously the winter is not the season for this but it provided a calm sensation that we were both looking forward to. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the beach and other areas. Also be cautious of the speed limits in the park, as horses and bikers/runners are out and about in abundance. The horses aren't meant to be fed by humans as it increases their dependence on outside food sources away from their habitat. These are wild animals that can kick and bite, yet parents were encouraging their young children to get close to the animals for photos. Please be cautioned though, the behavior we witnessed there was far below what the Rangers and normal people expect. We continued on and much to my joy and my wife's shock, we found roughly 6-8 horses in that area. A couple told us that there were often horse sightings at the end of the park's designation near the parking lot. Then we saw a crowd of people so we knew we'd be seeing something and one horse was grazing on the side of the road. As we drove for 5 minutes after entering the park officially (the pay station is a little further in past the visitor center over the bridge) we hadn't seen anything. Much to our dismay, the Rangers on duty said due to the season there was a good possibility we wouldn't see any horses due to hiding in the brush on the side of the road. The visitor center has several displays on the ecosystem, the horses, and conservation. We started at the visitor center to stamp our passports and browse the gift shop (above standards for NPS sites). ![]() We arrived around 11 in the afternoon to a windy and crowded parking lot, however it was roughly 65 degrees in late December. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Ocean City which was roughly 15 minutes from the entrance to the National Seashore. We were originally planning on doing this trip over the summer, but you could imagine (or maybe you can't) how much less expensive this was to do during the winter. We love visiting the National Park sites and I was intrigued by the possibility of seeing the wild horses. After Christmas, my wife and I decided to get away for a night and settled on Assateague Island National Seashore.
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