Awards & recognition
About this city
Also known as: America's Oldest Seashore Resort
Cape May is a world-renowned, architecturally spectacular seaside city located at the extreme southern tip of New Jersey, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean in Cape May County. Formally incorporated in 1848, it stands proudly as America's oldest seashore resort town. Following a catastrophic fire in 1878, the city rebuilt its core into an immaculate, fairytale landscape boasting the nation's largest and most dense concentration of late 19th-century Victorian gingerbread-style wood-frame mansions, earning the entire city a National Historic Landmark designation. Today, Cape May balances its rich upscale maritime heritage with global prominence as one of North America's premier bird-watching epicenters during annual migratory flights, offering a sophisticated, slow-paced coastal experience defined by pristine sandy beaches, horse-drawn carriages, and legendary historic inns.
Location & Administrative
Transportation & Accessibility
Weather & Timing
Economics & Local Vibe
Practical Tourism Metadata
Suggested stay: 2–3 days
Stroll or take a horse-drawn carriage past opulent Victorian estates along the historic Washington Street Mall, climb the 199 steps of the 1859 Cape May Lighthouse for panoramic ocean vistas, hunt for polished quartz stones at Sunset Beach, and view rare migratory raptors at the Cape May Bird Observatory.
