Ocean City runs about ten miles north to south on a barrier island, never more than a few blocks wide. The southern end is the historic downtown, with the three-mile wooden boardwalk that has been the city's signature since 1902. The downtown holds the original amusement piers, Trimper's Rides, the arcade and miniature golf strips, the old hotels with rocking chairs on their porches, and the affordable family motels that pre-date the high-rise era. North of about 27th Street, the city transitions to the strip-development model of high-rise condominiums along Coastal Highway. The northern half has the convention center, the larger chain hotels, the destination restaurants, and the year-round residential neighborhoods. From the south end of the boardwalk to the Delaware state line, Coastal Highway is the only through road, three lanes in each direction plus a dedicated bus and bicycle lane. In summer, the bus lane carries thousands of people an hour.

The Ocean City Boardwalk runs about three miles along the southern end of the beach, from the Inlet north to 27th Street. It was built in 1902 and rebuilt several times after fires and storms. Today it is one of the largest wooden boardwalks on the East Coast, lined with souvenir shops, arcades, snack bars, hotels, and the rides of Trimper's, which has been operating since 1893 - the oldest continuously family-owned amusement park in the country, with the original carousel dating to 1912. Dolle's Candyland has been making salt-water taffy here since 1910. Thrasher's French Fries, which serves only fries with malt vinegar and salt, has been on the boardwalk since 1929. The smell of Thrasher's fries and Boardwalk Fries from the competing stand has shaped the olfactory memory of a hundred years of Mid-Atlantic vacationers. The boardwalk is fully patrolled by lifeguards from late April through October. The waves are real Atlantic surf, not the Chesapeake's calmer flats.

Ocean City's natural deepwater inlet did not exist before August 23, 1933. The Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane, a powerful Category 1 storm, sat over the lower Eastern Shore for two days. The surge built up in Sinepuxent Bay west of the barrier island, then washed across a low section of dune south of the existing town, scouring a channel through to the ocean. When the storm receded, the channel held. The Army Corps of Engineers stabilized the new inlet with jetties within weeks. Overnight, the resort town that had no harbor became home to a major sport-fishing fleet. The white marlin tournaments held every August - including the prestigious White Marlin Open, which typically pays out $7 to $9 million to its winners - exist because of that one storm. The 1933 hurricane also cut Assateague Island off from Fenwick Island, leaving Assateague to drift westward as a separate barrier south of the inlet. The geography of the entire Lower Shore beach economy was redrawn in one afternoon.

Each June, immediately after high school graduation, thousands of recently-graduated seniors from across the Mid-Atlantic descend on Ocean City for Senior Week - a tradition of late nights, beach time, and first taste of independence. The city polices it carefully but does not try to stop it; the economy depends partly on those crowds. Family beach traffic peaks later in the summer, with parents and grandparents coordinating multi-generational rental house weeks in late July and August. The hotel and condo inventory in Ocean City runs to about 47,000 units; the average occupancy on a peak summer weekend is over 95 percent. The crowd density on the busiest beach blocks - around the Inlet and at the boardwalk piers - rivals New Jersey shore towns. The northern blocks are quieter and more residential. The mix matters: families with small children gravitate to the north, college students to the south, and the city's reputation has both audiences in mind.

Three roads bring people to Ocean City. US 50 from the west, the Ocean Gateway, crosses Sinepuxent Bay on the Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge and lands at the southern downtown. Maryland 90 from the west, the Ocean City Expressway, crosses the Assawoman Bay on its own bridge and lands in the central part of the city. Delaware Route 1 from the north, Coastal Highway, runs the length of the Delaware coast and continues south through Ocean City as Maryland Route 528. On peak summer Friday afternoons, all three approaches back up for miles. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge on US 50, two hours west, regularly sees three-hour delays for beachbound traffic on summer Fridays. Travel from Baltimore or Washington in either direction is about three hours, with the catch that the same three hours can become six in the wrong window. The locals know to leave at 3 a.m. The newcomers learn the hard way that the most important navigation tool for an Ocean City trip is a flexible departure time.