St. Patrick’s Day Done Right
You don’t have to go far to find a great atmosphere with great people.
Social gatherings bring out the best in us, and can often help attendees branch out and meet new people. There may be no better way to get out and experience town living to the fullest than an annual St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl.
Pub Crawls are a staple of the Americanized version of St. Patrick’s Day, one of this country’s most fun-centered and party-filled holidays. Cities across the nation light up green in honor of the Irish St. Patrick, and it’s not uncommon to find a bit of green in just about everything come March 17.
Even non-Irish pubs often serve shamrock green beers all day long, offering pub goers a refreshing and festive accent to a day full of celebration.
Nearly every major city in the United States has its own take on St. Patrick’s Day, and you don’t have to cross the pond to Dublin to get what feels like an authentic Irish celebration. Baltimore, Washington D.C., and plenty of other modern metropolises have various events and crawls where you can get discounted drinks and a driver to shuttle your group to and from each location.
Pub Crawls typically feature a set of designated locations, where patrons have a limited amount of time to drink up until hitting the road for the next stop. The name comes from the slow pace of pushing from bar to bar at the crawl, with drinkers spending short amounts of time at each bar before heading to the next. Or, perhaps it derives from a bar crawl’s most rowdy participants, who may end up partying too hard and actually crawling to the final bars on the list.
Check out a few of the local and not-so-local options perfectly suited for your green-themed St. Patty’s Day fun.
Westminster’s Celtic Canter Pub Crawl/5K
The Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day (March 14) features a plethora of holiday events. Westminster’s Celtic Canter Pub Crawl draws crowds looking for some mid-day St. Patrick’s Day fun with some familiar locations, featuring stops at Maggie’s, Conah’s Bar and Grille, O’Lordans Irish Pub, RockSalt Grille, and many more. The crawl begins at noon, and features 10 bars with specials along the way. The crawl kicks off at the Westminster City Department of Recreation.
Crawlers are given a passport to have punched at each bar, with participants who complete the passport entered to win gift cards at the restaurants featured in the crawl. A free trolley is available for guests to safely tour the bars, shuttling passengers until 5 p.m.
Drinking and exercise is a seemingly strange pairing that has gained popularity in recent years, and Westminster also offers a 5K run the morning before the pub crawl.
A morning run may be the perfect way to prepare and compensate for the carb blowout that comes with St. Patty’s Day beers and food, so it’s worth checking out for those go-getters looking to celebrate the holiday from start to finish.
The race runs through historic downtown Westminster and has enough activities for kids and live music to keep the whole family entertained. Plus, finishers get a free T-shirt, and that is something everyone can get behind.
St. Patty’s Day Margarita Crawl
Bar Crawl Unlimited is well-known for hosting outrageously fun pub crawls, packed with good bars and better beers.
The margarita crawl is a unique take on a traditionally beer-focused holiday. Margaritas aren’t just the perfect summer drink, and with the unusually warm winter, it may just be your first taste of Spring.
Rain or shine, the plan does not change for this pub crawl, so if a fun and concrete plan for a great St. Patrick’s Day is on your radar, a margarita crawl may be the perfect trip to start your Spring right.
This Baltimore-based Pub Crawl kicks off from popular downtown spot Power Plant, with six hours of drinking throughout scenic downtown Baltimore. There are plenty of giveaways, live music, and discounted drinks to keep the party going all day long.
Registration at Power Plant begins at 2:00 p.m. on March 7.
Chase The Green Bar Crawl
Washington D.C. is full of historic monuments, beautiful museums, and some of the most fun city tours in America.
It also has a great nightlife, and pub crawl promoters capitalize on the bar scene every St. Patrick’s Day with some of the best pub crawls on the east coast.
D.C. has plenty of crawls to offer the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day, and Chase The Green pub crawl features six great bars all with a unique spin. Each bar plays different music, so no matter the taste or mood, you are sure to find a few that bring out your Irish side.
Food and drink specials keep the party going all night long, so patrons are free to contour their St. Patty’s Day experience well after the pub crawl is over.
The event expects more than 1,000 participants, so get your tickets early before they sell out for good.
Outside of Ireland, nobody does St. Patrick’s Day bigger and better than right here in the United States. Whether you choose to stick with one of the local parades, or head to your nearest Irish pub, you can’t go wrong tossing on a green shirt and some face paint to go see what towns near you have to offer.
Keep your eyes open for early-bird offers on tickets, because nobody wants to miss out on a great time with great people, and your perfect day trip is right around the corner.
Please note that, locally, Emmitsburg’s Vigilant Hose Company hosts a St. Patty’s Day Pub Crawl, but it was sold out at the time of this publishing.
