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Visiting the Beach in New Jersey

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The Jersey Shore - A playground for all.

Have you heard about going down the shore in New Jersey but don't know what people are talking about? This lens provides a general introduction to the geography of the place. You will also find out about the names of a number of beach communties and what they have to offer a summer visitor to the Jersey Shore.

How to Get There

There are a few main highways that bring in most of the traffic to the Jersey Shore. For those coming from New York City, and east and north of there, finding your way to the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway is generally the way to go. This is also true for many people that are heading to the beach from northern New Jersey. Another major source of visitors come from Philadelphia and locations around the city. The major route to the shore from there is NJ state highway 70. This road runs into the Garden State Parkway and shore points north and south of its intersection with that road.

There are some obvious and predictable problems with these roads. There are a few roads that funnel a lot of traffic, from areas with huge populations, to the beach. On days and at times when a lot of people want to get to or leave the shore, virtual gridlock can occur. One of the worst times to access the shore is a Friday, during the late afternoon or early evening during the summer. It can also be problematic to leave on a Sunday night or, during a three day holiday weekend, on a Monday evening.

Try to make plans that can help you avoid traveling at these times. Take an vacation day and leave on a Thursday. Take a half day and leave in the early afternoon.

Northern Shore Areas

The northern New Jersey shore includes many places that are not as easily accessible to most people. Some of the communities here are just not the beach destinations they used to be. Long Branch has lost much of its beach, Asbury Park has little tourism related infrastructure and some of the nicer beaches are in places that have mostly expensive (not for day, weekend, or week long visitors!) homes.

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Belmar to Manasquan

Belmar is the busiest, in terms of the number of visitors that come and go over the course of the summer. This is largely driven by accommodations in town. While there are not a huge number of hotels, there are more here than in all the other communities in this area combined. There are also many of the homes in town that are available for rent during the summer.

Just south, in Spring Lake, there are some homes for rent but they are also a lot more expensive. Sea Girt and Manasquan are a bit less exclusive in their rental prices but there are few hotels. If you have a family, and want a quiet vacation, stay away from Belmar. If you are young, want to party with your friends at night and lounge all day on the beach with them, go to Belmar!

Barnegat Penisula

This is the most varied stretch of beach in New Jersey. Point Pleasant is first, in moving from north to south along the Peninsula. There is a nice commercial boardwalk with rides, food, arcades, clubs and even an aquarium. The community is also a very family friendly place.

Heading further south there are a few relatively exclusive communities, and then there is a distinctive "line in the sand" when we reach Normandy Beach and Chadwick Beach and Dover Beaches. The former two communities have much smaller homes than just further north, and the latter is exclusively small vacation homes. Commercialization then begins to build in bigger ways, through Lavallette and Ortley Beach.

Seaside Heights is next. While it too has a commercial boardwalk just like Point Pleasant, they is a very different place. There are many hotels in town and there are a lot of young folks that come to town with their friends. This is a party town.

Moving further south, we come to the slower paced Seaside Park and the entrance to Island Beach State Park. The contrast evident in the last ten miles of the peninsula with most of the rest of the Jersey shore is the lack of development. The protected habitats found her are a rarity for New Jersey.

Southern Shore

Long Beach Island, Atlantic City, Wildwood and finally Cape May round out the rest of the coast. Each of these have their own distinctive flavor of what they can offer beach visitors. Long Beach Island and Cape May are less commercialized than Wildwood, with its busy boardwalk, and Atlantic City, with its casinos.

by

DonRuily

I have been going down the shore in New Jersey all my life. I want to create lenses that are about just that.

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