I just got back from a week on the beaches of Cape May, New Jersey. While the experience is still as fresh in my mind as the sand lining my tote bag, you need to throw your bathing suit into a bag and run away to the Jersey Shore ASAP. (I mean, I’ll probably convince you right off with #1, but I’ll give you 15 more anyway!)
16 Reasons to Spend Your Summer Vacation in Cape May, NJ
1) BEAUTIFUL BEACH! You can actually swim without kicking four people in the face! The beach is so clean you can’t even find sea glass!
2) The major annoyance of the day isn’t subway delays, it’s that there’s no sea glass on the beach because some hipster collected it all for their bicycle.
3) The season’s only on-trend accessory is a floppy hat. The only makeup is sunscreen.
4) This can be your sidewalk. No slow-moving tourists, no models strutting, no business men yelling on cell phones. Hardly a person in earshot and open blue skies.
5) The biggest accomplishment of your day is building a Dr. Seuss-esque sand castle with you’re 12-year-old cousin and this feels like a grand success.
6) Realizing carriage rides exist outside of Central Park. But there is surprisingly little price difference.
7) #freethenipple when bodysurfing in waves strong enough to knock the bikini top right off your knockers.
8) To order a root beer float at a genuine soda shop. It’ll cost you less than $5 and you can sip it while spinning all the way around on the perfect cliché red stool.
9) You can be a total tourist. No one will even judge you. I know, it’s hard to believe but trust me!
10) Time to bake pies from scratch (or at least watch your cousin bake them from scratch!). With central air so that even with the oven cranked the kitchen still remains cool.
11) A bicycle ride with very little traffic and the little traffic there is yields to your every movement. It’s actually freaky. You will wish the back of your shirt read, “NYC BIKER, BITCHES”.
12) The closest thing to a skyscraper is a lighthouse.
13) Road signs for turtle crossings.
14) Honor-system flower stands on the side of the road where the whole bouquet costs what one flower would cost in the city.
15) Remember houses exist! Stay in NYC long enough and you’ll think the whole world is apartments.
Houses can be really pretty!
Really, really pretty!
That last one is a B&B, which is basically like an apartment building…maybe you can convince your landlord to give your building a paint job….
- Family. Fill the house with family, be it the New York family you’ve created or the family who created you!
I spent a whole week on the beach with 13 of my relatives. I’m a bit of a generational anomaly in my family so no one the closest person to my age was 17 years younger than me!
Even so, it was really special, really fun, and completely drama free (a family reunion anomaly)!
I’ve never spent so much time at the beach. 6 whole days and almost perfect weather the entire time! Couldn’t have asked for a better vacation!
Have you ever been to the Jersey shore? Do you have a beach vacation planned (or completed!) for this summer? If not, what’s your (less cliché!) vacation plan instead?
I love that you enjoyed being a tourist – sometimes it’s just got to be done. Thanks for sharing – I know little about the Jersey Shore except from the program (eeeek!) so thanks for sharing the real Jersey Shore! It looks beautiful!
I was just like you before this trip- knew next to nothing about the actual Jersey shore! It really is beautiful an well worth the trip from NYC! And yep, just letting my tourist flag fly felt surprisingly free!
Beautiful snapshots Mary. I was in Cape May during part of my typical (if anything is typical about me or my vacations–typical for me) summer vacations all over the northeast coast, and you definitely found the best part of the Jersey Shore with its three-sided curving beach. I found it delightful. I can’t remember the name of the seafood place we ate afterward on a boat harbored to the dock but it was really great. It’s a trip worth going for if you like the beach but want to be out of the way and in a good place. I see even your characteristic red hair took a blonde vacation too.
Another spot I recommend (though I can offer many from my travels) is Eastport Maine–nary a New Yorker–the cliche seems to end at Bar Harbor, only halfway up the coast. Best Maine lobster rolls there.
It was indeed such a beautiful town! Was the sea food place you mean The Lobster House? We tried to go there but it was a 90 minute wait at 5:45pm- worse than Manhattan!
It’s funny you mention Maine because the other side of my family vacations in New Harbor on the coast. Haven’t been there in years but I love it!
My aunt and uncle live in Spring Lake, NJ a couple blocks from the beach. The Jersey Shore is so beautiful as are the houses! My aunt has turned me into a real estate junkie, and we drive around looking at all the old houses around town that are for sale and go to open houses and see how we’d redo them. Some are like, $5-6M!!! Crazy. I also really, REALLY love biking in those towns because there is very little road traffic, and NJ drivers are used to cyclists on their roads. This looks very fun/relaxing!
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I had NO IDEA the houses would be so pretty and that biking would be so the norm! Both super pleasant surprises! It’s awesome you have family down there and an excuse to visit!
Love the Jersey Shore in the summer. Such great seaside towns to take a weekend getaway to.
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Do people go just for the weekend? It took nearly 5 hours to get to Cape May, that’s a lot for just 2 days! But I’m sure there’s plenty of shore that’s closer!