As the home of literary luminaries including Edgar Allan Poe, H.L. Mencken, and more recently Laura Lippman and David Simon, as well as the Maryland Institute of Art, the nation's oldest arts college, Baltimore's arts and culture bona fides span centuries, not just decades. The city has it going on in every area of the arts and boasts a thriving indie music scene with venues -- large and small -- scattered throughout its neighborhoods that has been recognized as the nation's best by Rolling Stone magazine.

The visual arts range from the traditional displayed at the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art to the innovative and sometimes quirky at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, the Contemporary Museum and the American Visionary Arts Museum and a plethora of independent studios and galleries all over the city. 

The long-established Centerstage leads the way for local theatergoers who can take in a Broadway play at the Hippodrome or enjoy performances smaller performances at one of the many local and/or experimental theaters throughout the city.