Chesapeake Tours & Promotions

Chesapeake Tours is a full-service receptive tour provider. They custom design itineraries, provide professional step-on guides for bus tours and offer event planning services for family reunions around your chosen destination. Every tour is inspired by the unspoiled uniqueness, and deep-rooted history and culture, of the Chesapeake region.

Chesapeake Tours and Promotions was founded by Priscilla Timken, a seventh-generation native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. An explorer of back roads and hideaway eateries, quaint small towns and ocean-side resorts, museums and outdoor adventures, wineries and historic sites, Priscilla built a unique travel experience that is truly Chesapeake. Ultimately Priscilla retired to enjoy a bit more of this Chesapeake heaven on her own and transferred the company to The Menare Foundation, her longtime collaborator in the field.

Menare boasts an impressive position as well in the field of heritage tourism. Founded in 1999 by Anthony Cohen, the organization has worked for two decades to bring innovative experiences to history lovers nationwide. Cohen, an author, scholar and explorer of the American past, rose to prominence in 1996 as the “walking historian” after hiking 800 miles by foot, from Maryland to Canada, on a route of the Underground Railroad. While retracing the path forged by Harriet Tubman and others Cohen discovered an America seldom seen, and in turn launched Menare to connect travelers, explorers and adventurers worldwide with our nation’s enduring story of freedom.

Chesapeake Tours offers tours related to Harriet Tubman (born in Dorchester County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore) and the Underground Railroad along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, as well as a tour that includes civil rights history in Cambridge, Maryland. Another tour explores Cambridge as “home and stomping ground to some of the most famous women of all time” including Harriet Tubman, legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley, actress Bea Arthur, civil rights leader Gloria Richardson, and more. Plus culinary tours. For details and booking information, go to chesapeaketourplanner.com.