The Wire Tour: Culture and Travel Context

The Wire Tour is a grand tour of Baltimore, taking you past various important filming locations for the highly acclaimed HBO TV series, The Wire. It is a driving tour 54 miles long (87 km) past 54 filming locations. It would take about 3½ hours without stopping at the sights, but to properly do the tour, you'll want to make stops for photos, food, and general gaping. It's wise to plan for a full day.

First, watch The Wire. The whole thing. Otherwise do not read beyond this section, as major spoilers follow! If you haven't watched it yet, many major news organizations and arts and entertainment journals have called it the greatest TV series of all time, on par with great literature. Entire classes devoted to studying the TV series are offered at top U.S. universities. You likely won't regret watching the full five seasons.

There's really only one thing you need to bring along (aside from a printout of the itinerary): a car with a full tank of gas. There is a surprising dearth of gas stations in the city, so fill up first! The only other thing you might find useful to bring is a camera to capture some of the more interesting surprises you'll find along the way.

The tour begins on Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, heading north from I-395 off I-95. To get there from Downtown or the Inner Harbor, take any major road and head west, then turn right (north) onto the boulevard.

If you want something to eat before you start, Lexington Market is just east of MLK Jr Blvd on the western edge of Downtown. On the Paca St Entrance you'll find Faidley's (M-Sa 11AM-5PM), which serves magnificent crabcakes—the virtues of which are extolled by every food review, everyone in Baltimore, and of course McNulty, who brings some for a couple cops on a stakeout. They liked them too—"Faidley's? You all right, McNulty." They run about $18 each, so for a cheaper Bawlmer option, you could try a coddie, a $2 codcake sandwiched between saltines with mustard.

Bring your car. This is a driving itinerary, as there simply is no other realistic way to tour the various filming locations—Baltimore's system of public transport is lacking, and furthermore there are parts of this trip where it is safer and more comfortable to avoid traveling on foot, particularly in West and East Baltimore, as well as the eastern portion of the North Central section. Granted, chances are fairly slim that anything bad would happen to you, but if you are unfamiliar with the city and walking around snapping photos in areas that wouldn't dream of being a tourist destination, prepare to feel extremely visible, stared at, and uncomfortably out of place!

Portions of this tour are easily visited on foot, particularly those Downtown and by the Inner Harbor, but this will leave you picking and choosing among a select few of the filming locations, and you will not be able to complete the grand tour.

This is a meandering and complicated itinerary through many of the city's lesser known streets. You'll have a much easier time if you bring a friend along, who can be your navigator and read the itinerary as you go!

There are lots of great places to eat filmed in The Wire, all of them dripping with local character and a real sense of place. Look for them in the following sections of the tour, and plan to finish on a full stomach!

West Baltimore is where it all begins, right on Lexington and Fulton Ave where Snot Boogie, the man of unfortunate name and unfortunate life laid dead in the street. While nearly the whole of the drug gang plotlines theoretically take place in West Baltimore, only the first season was extensively shot here. The directors found East Baltimore's relatively treeless streets much easier to film in, as they could film throughout at least three of the seasons without losing seasonal continuity. To reach the series opening scene, head up MLK Jr Ave, turn left onto W Fayette St, then after going a ways, right on Fulton Ave and up two blocks to Lexington. The scene was filmed on Lexington on the block just to the left. As you drive through West Baltimore, keep a lookout for the famous horse cart fruit vendor in good weather—he's very much real, and quite the living legend.

This cultural overview is an excerpt of a community travel guide. Confirm current access, schedules and prices with the venue before planning a visit.

Source and licence

Text adapted from The Wire Tour by Wikivoyage contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. This adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.