Method
How we verify
We go to the source, we date every fact, and we publish corrections. That's the whole method. It is unglamorous and it is the entire reason this site exists.
Why it needs saying
Swallow Falls started requiring a day-use reservation every day of the summer in May 2026. Months later, most of what you'll find still tells you to turn up and park. That's not anyone being careless — it's that nobody re-checks a page they wrote three years ago, and nobody wrote down where the fact came from in the first place.
Getting that wrong costs a three-hour drive from Baltimore. So the useful thing isn't more description of the waterfall; it's knowing when the answer was last true.
The rules
1. The source is the body that sets the rule
A park rule comes from the park or the agency that runs it. A town park's hours come from the town. A fee comes from whoever collects it. We do not take a fact from another guide, ever, including when that guide is probably right.
2. Every page says which kind of fact it is
There are two honest answers to "how do you know that", and they aren't the same, so they're labelled separately rather than blurred into one word.
- Confirmed
- We called, visited, or asked the body that sets the rule. The page carries a stamp with the date and the name of whoever told us.
- Read from the source
- Taken from a named primary source — the county's own announcement, Maryland DNR's park page, a town's own listing — but not yet confirmed by phone. The page says so and names the source.
Both get published. The difference is stated, because "the county published this" and "we rang the county and asked" are different claims and you deserve to know which one you're reading. Most of this site is currently the second kind, and it says so on every page.
3. What we will not publish
A fact whose only origin is another guide, a review site or an aggregator does not go in. It gets no stamp, it's markednoindex, and it stays out of the sitemap until someone has actually checked it. That's enforced by the site's build rather than by good intentions, so a draft can't ship as a fact by accident.
4. "Not confirmed" is a real answer
Where we don't know something, the page says so rather than guessing or quietly leaving it out. An empty field on a park listing means we haven't checked it — it does not mean the park lacks the thing. Most of the restroom fields on the town parks read "not confirmed" right now, and that's the truth rather than an oversight.
5. Conflicts stay unpublished
When two sources disagree we don't average them and we don't pick one. Both get recorded, the field stays out of the published answer, and it goes to the top of the call list. There's one live example: Maryland's reservation page implies same-day booking works when a park is under capacity, and the county announcement doesn't mention same-day at all. Until the park settles it, we don't say either.
6. Corrections are published, not buried
When we get something wrong, we fix it, re-date it, and note on the page that it was corrected and when. A site that claims to be verified and silently rewrites its mistakes is worth less than one that never claimed it.
Found something wrong?
Tell us and we'll check it. Locals know these parks better than any publisher does, and a correction from someone who was standing there yesterday is worth more than another phone call.Get in touch through Werth Design, who build and maintain this site.