I grew up in the Philadelphia area and for us there was only one place for summer vacation and that was “down the Jersey Shore.” And it had to be said like that too, “down the shore” because that is where everyone went at least for a week every summer. Families chose different shore towns depending on their preferences or family beach house location, but we were always Ocean City people. I remember those trips well; my mom and her best friend would take me and a friend or my aunt and cousin would join us “down the shore” and it was the best week of the year!
Twenty years later, an MTV reality TV show captured a very different side to the Jersey Shore than I ever remembered. The shore filmed in Seaside Heights and coined the phrase, “GTL,” which represented the most important 3 things in this summer life, gym-tan-laundry. Most of the show’s action happened on the Seaside Heights Boardwalk, the Beachcomber Bar & Grill, Jenkinson’s North Inlet Bar, the Shore Store they worked in and in their beach house. The vacation rental has become popular with tourists wanting to book 1209 Ocean Terrace to live out their own Jersey Shore dreams. Seaside Heights is the beach town in Jersey where you want to party in your twenties, but it’s an hour drive from the South Jersey beaches I remember in my childhood. I had to convince my husband, Ocean City is so family oriented it is a dry town, so remember to stop at the liquor store before crossing the bridge!
There are over 30 different shore towns located on the Atlantic coast. The luxurious areas of Asbury Park & Point Pleasant Beach are located in Northern Jersey, closer to New York City. I often see cute budget vacation suggestions to try the Jersey shore instead of the Hamptons. Don’t ever get the Jersey Shore mixed up with the Hamptons, these towns have only sand in common. The Toms River area of Central Jersey has a separate feel from both North and South Jersey beaches. They have a town named Normandy Beach, but it doesn’t share much similarity with its namesake other than sand either. The party towns of Seaside Heights and Surf City are centrally located in this part of central Jersey on the barrier islands.
South Jersey Shore
Atlantic City marks the beginning of the South Jersey area, but still is its own vacation destination. Atlantic City is a mash up between Las Vegas and a South Jersey beach town. It has huge casino resorts like the Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa, Harrah’s and the Golden Nugget on the bay side that attract gamblers and those wanting to see shows and concerts. Resorts like Tropicana (with an IMAX movie theater), Bally’s Atlantic City Hotel & Casino, Caesars Atlantic City, Hard Rock Casino & Restaurant and Showboat Resort (with Island Waterpark) are all located on the beach side, on or close to boardwalk access. These attract local and distant travelers to enjoy both the Jersey Shore beach environment by day and exhilarating nightlife after sunset. Atlantic City is my long-term rainy weather back up plan when we are in Ocean City. It’s less than a 30 minute drive, has parking garages with covered parking and lots of indoor activities besides gambling, including restaurants, shopping, movies and even a huge indoor water park. Lot’s of travelers who have casino privileges and free nights are drawn to this area of the shore, since hotel and beach rentals are all very expensive during the summer season.
Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Avalon, Stone Harbor, the Wildwoods and Cape May are all considered South Jersey. Beach towns seem to gain popularity in direct proportion to their boardwalks. Out of these towns, only Stone Harbor does not have a boardwalk. It originally did, but a storm in 1944 destroyed it and the city never rebuilt it resulting in a quieter area. Avalon has a small, wooden boardwalk that is not commercialized that many visitors enjoy strolling along, but again isn’t very popular with families. Sea Isle City has a 1.5-mile asphalt-covered boardwalk that runs from 29th-57th streets. The original boardwalk was modeled after Atlantic City’s boardwalk, but later became one of the town’s most accessible attractions.
Ocean City, the Wildwoods and Cape May are the most popular areas for families and young summer workers, all attracted to their amazing boardwalks. The Wildwood Boardwalk has been referred to as “two miles of smiles” because of their amazing amusement piers, roller coasters, interactive water parks, carnival-style games, shopping and incredible food options and attracts 9 million visitors per year. Cape May’s boardwalk is called the Promenade and is a paved path that runs along Beach Ave for 2 miles. Visitors are attracted to the area for walking, running, biking and skating with its beautiful beach views and great spots to shop and eat.
The Ocean City Boardwalk
The Ocean City Boardwalk is the longest, spanning 2.5 miles total, from 1st to 23rd streets. From mid-May through Labor Day, bike traffic is limited to 5am-noon on the Boardwalk for safety and crowd control. Early morning bike riders, joggers and surrey riders all take to the boardwalk to get the blood flowing. I wish I could say we have enjoyed this time in the morning, but alas my daughter likes to sleep in on vacations (that one has way too much of her father’s vacation style in her). I remember as kids, renting a surrey bike first thing and riding them around the boardwalk for at least 60-90 minutes. Three years into this annual trip, my daughter has still not gotten up with me one morning to experience this tradition!
The boardwalk is a great spot to grab a coffee at the Ocean City Coffee Company (they have an Asbury Ave. location too), during or after your workout. If the weather is even remotely acceptable, most people hit the beach by mid-morning and Ocean City is a narrow beach compared to its neighboring beach towns. On the Boardwalk, at 7th Street is a surf shop that has great beach essentials but also offers surf lessons and camps right on the 7th Street beach on the north side of the jetty. This is a great activity for kids, teens and adults alike and I think I’ll have to try it with my teenage son’s when they come on a shore trip. The boardwalk is a lifeline for sandy beach goers for bathrooms, foot sprayers and eating and snacking establishments. Never make the mistake of bringing a lunch here, you’ll want to indulge in Manco & Manco pizza, lobster rolls or even have hoagies delivered to the beach & boardwalk. Keep cool with ice cream, lemonaid, water ice and snow cones
Shopping and eating are the two things that are always open early in the morning and until midnight (about an hour after curfew, anyone under 18 must be with a parent after 11:00pm). There are so many touristy shirt and beachwear stores, souvenir shops, beachy home decor, trendy toys & collectables and the coveted hermit crabs…yes crabs! I remember getting these small cages and picking out a few crabs each year to take home with a few shells for them to grow into. They never lasted long, they were not meant for the suburbs and I don’t want to continue the tradition now that I realize how terrible it is for the crabs. But my brown eyed girl wants them SO badly. So far I have her convinced that you can’t take hermit crabs on an airplane. I distract her with the candy stores and ice cream shops that are abundant.
Dinner restaurants on the boardwalk are typical for shore nights. If I can convince my husband to start joining us for our summer beach trips, I’ll probably start planning a date night for the two of us to enjoy at a nice seafood or Italian restaurant. Pizza is always the fastest and easiest, especially since I crave Manco’s Sicilian slices in my sleep. But we often have pizza for lunch on the beach, and there is too much good food to eat in just a week. We’ve tried the seafood restaurants on the boardwalk, Oves Restaurant, Clancy’s By the Sea and Ike’s Famous Crabcakes. Oves is a family tradition for years offering both bike rentals and a delicious full service restaurant. The second was ok, but haven’t returned since, however Ike’s Famous Crabcakes is amazing and we went twice last trip and twice again on this year’s trip. They have incredible homemade potato chips with warm crab dip oozing down the plate. The kids’ fish stick meal came in a sand bucket and shovel, so we had a few of our toys from those meals, what a great presentation for a kid to remember! On the north side of the Boardwalk Georges and Ocean Cafe are good restaurants that serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and are typically less busy since they are located a bit farther north than the others. If you have younger children, going up the the Pier for some rides, then stopping at one of these restaurants for dinner before an early evening is perfect.
Walking the boardwalk is also about eating sweet treats along the way and bringing home some fudge or salt water taffy to rot your teeth for weeks to come. Kohr Bros ice cream is the staple of Ocean City! This soft serve ice cream is offered in a few flavors or twists including the popular peanut butter, coffee, orange & vanilla swirl and our daily favorite, the mint. You can turn it into mint chocolate chip by adding chocolate jimmies, I prefer rainbow jimmies or have it purely as a refreshing mint treat. There is also Rita’s water ice that is an amazing option of either straight fruity ice or mixed with soft serve ice cream. Finally, there is a place here that serves dole whip ice creams called Aloha, we don’t get them because that’s a Disney memory for us, but it’s a great place to try them.
The Music Pier on the Ocean City Boardwalk is the central hub of the boardwalk and hosts many events and activities all summer long. The most famous of the activities are the Mummers Nights on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7-9, when the small groups strut between 6th-14th streets. Anyone who has been to a Philadelphia parade knows the Mummers are taken very seriously in the city. The Mummers are costumed citizens who celebrate New Years in the annual Mummers Parade. They belong to clubs in one of 5 divisions including the comic, the fancy, the Wench Brigade, the String Band and the Fancy Brigade Division and typically the String Band performs on the Boardwalk for practice and to drum up future fans. This year we got to see them prancing and playing down the boardwalk to my daughter and mothers delight!
After dark, the amusement parks really gets going. They open early for the little kids, but you hear the real screams after dark. There are two on the boardwalk, Gillian’s Wonderland Pier (on the north end) and Playland’s Castaway Cove located midway down the boardwalk. Of course Cassidy likes the one that is the farthest away, this is how we get all our steps in daily! We go to Wonderland too, where her younger cousins can ride cars and trains. There are arcade game areas in the amusement parks and stand alone places on the boardwalk, quite a few mini-golf locations and some new attractions where you have to climb through lasers or a mirror maze. For the ultimate shore souvenir, stop by an old time photography studio and get a photo memory of your group dressed up like a gangster on the bar or girls in hoop skirts on a sofa in the parlor. It’s silly, but makes for great memories. I also see families hiring a photographer for golden hour (one hour before sunset) and take family beach portraits. Also a great option, especially for family reunions and special occasions.
Accommodations
Ocean City is known as “America’s Greatest Family Resort” and has been a hot vacation spot for decades. Honestly, some of the older hotels and motels feel like they are still out of the 80’s or 90’s and can be disappointing when people spend “that much money” and just get a musty smelling, little room with 2 queen beds next to the ice machine. Do a little research before you choose your hotel or motel. We’ve stayed at Ocean 7 Hotel for the past three years and my daughter thinks it’s amazing…my mother and I can see the flaws in the layout of the suites and painfully slow elevator service. But the location can’t be beaten, right on the boardwalk, and it doesn’t smell musty. The past three years we have stayed at the Ocean 7 Hotel, right on the Boardwalk at 7th street. It gives off 90’s beach vibes and is far from luxurious, but the location is perfect, and it has both beach and pool options which is always a plus with my kids. However, I think we are going to bring the whole family of 5 out next year, so we will need to find other accommodations to fit our family.
There are really only two main options for staying in Ocean City, hotel/motel or a vacation rental. If you are planning to stay a week or longer or have a large group staying together I’d suggest renting a beach home. There are rentals from efficiency apartments to huge beach mansions and everything in between, check some of them out here Ocean City Rentals. The boardwalk runs from 2nd Street to 27th street and any rentals 28th street and higher are in the residential part of Ocean City. It will feel more beach oriented and less shopping, eating, riding. Easier to have quiet nights at home, cook meals in a fully equipped kitchen and take a romantic walk on the beach. I look forward to the future and hope to plan annual Ocean City beach trips and continue meeting my cousins with their kids for a family fun week down the shore.
There are a few other hotels to consider trying in the future, including some other 3 star hotels like The Forum, Ocean Manor and Watson’s Regency Suites. The Flanders Hotel, Beach Club Suites and Beach Club Hotel boast more luxury accommodations and are located directly on the boardwalk with ocean views. Most of these options include pools, hot tubs, lounge chairs, restaurants and even beach tag rentals. Just from walking around and looking at their locations and conditions while we were visiting, these places are all worth looking into accommodation options and prices.
Next year, consider “America’s Greatest Family Resort” for your next family vacation. We’re considering the busiest time of the summer, July 4th to meet up with my family and celebrate Independence Day. Ocean City has an annual kite contest during the day and Fireworks off the pier at night. Cassidy is already asking me which week we will be going next summer, clearly I’ve created a beach monster. I find it stressful to go ‘home’ to the Philadelphia area, but it’s so nice to have this spot at the Jersey Shore where I can share happy parts of my childhood with my own family and build new happy family memories at the beach.
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