11 Best Sights in Cape May, New Jersey Shore

Park the car and see Cape May's historic district the way they did when these building were born—aboard an elegant horse-drawn buggy. A dispatcher at the edge of Washington Street mall can arrange thirty minute tours for couples group tours for up to eight adults and two children. A fixture on the scene for nearly 30 years, Cape May Carriage Company has a fleet of more than 20 horses that all live on the owners' nearby farm. There are also ghost tours and holiday lights tours.

This small gem of a zoo houses 250 species, including lions, giraffes, lemurs, snow leopards, red pandas, crocodiles, and pink flamingos. Take a walking safari on the raised boardwalk bordering the African savanna habitat, and visit the aviary and reptile houses. A carousel and minature train will lure the littlest ones and the surrounding county park is filled with picnic areas, playgrounds, bike trails, and a pond for fishing.

One of the oldest operating lighthouses in the United States, the 1859 beacon marks the southernmost tip of New Jersey and beams its light 24 mi out to sea. Climb up the winding stairs (199) to the top of the 157-foot-tall structure. From the watch gallery, under the reconstructed lantern, you have views of the Atlantic, Delaware Bay, and Cape May Point State Park. A small museum and gift shop are on-site.

Board the 80-foot M/V American Star for up-close wildlife viewing with the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center. An onboard naturalist identifies species of whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals. There are four tours daily in summer and autumn. Complimentary coffee and donuts come with the dolphin breakfast cruise; free pizza and hot dogs are served in the evening.

Take a 30-minute tour of the east, west, or beachfront area of Cape May aboard one of the MAC-sponsored red trolleys that ply town streets. Combination trolley/Physick Estate tours are offered, along with children's rides, Romantic Moonlight tours, and Stairway to the Stars, a trolley trip combined with a trek to the top of the Cape May Point Lighthouse to stargaze (remember to bring the mosquito repellent).

Part of the New Jersey Audubon Society, the center has tours, art exhibits, aquaria, themed gardens, and a viewing deck and tower for spotting harriers, seabirds, and other winged creatures. Educational activities take place throughout Cape May and within the center's 18 acres of beach, meadow, and marsh habitat that border the man-made harbor.

The diverse mix of ocean shoreline, dunes, freshwater coastal marsh and ponds, islands, forests, and fields makes the 235-acre park at the southern end of the Cape May peninsula a mecca for sea and shore birds during the fall migration. Bird-watchers follow in droves and gather up-to-the-minute information from the Cape May Bird Observatory's Northwood Center. Attractions like surf-fishing, marked trails, observation platforms, the Cape May Lighthouse, picnic tables and shelters, a visitors center, and a museum also make the park ideal for year-round visits.

The Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities organizes monthly sightseeing cruises that visit all the viewable lighthouses in the Delaware Bay. Each trip takes seven hours and includes complimentary breakfast and buffet lunch, as well as a cash bar. Boats run by Cape May Whale Watcher leave from Miss Chris Fishing Center at the marina near the entrance to Cape May.

Craftspeople in date-appropriate costumes demonstrate their trades using traditional tools, methods, and materials at this nonprofit, living-history site on 22 shady acres north of Cape May. The farming village is made up of more than 20 restored buildings originally built between 1691 and 1905, including a blacksmith shop, a bookbindery, and a schoolhouse.

Peer into the life of the Victorian elite during a 45-minute tour of the 18-room mansion built in 1879 for Emlen Physick, a nonpracticing physician (courtesy of a family inheritance) who lived with his mother and maiden aunt. The mansion's timber-outline exterior is in Stick Style, avant-garde for its day. Guides point out original furnishings and discuss period customs and clothing. Most tours can be combined with trolley rides through Cape May's Historic District and, on Fridays, tours have a family focus. Take time for afternoon tea or a light lunch at the Twining's Tearoom, in the estate's carriage house. Entrance to the adjacent Carriage House Gallery is included in the tour price.

Drive—or better yet—bicycle the 3 mi to the south end of Sunset Boulevard for the sunset flag ceremony held from May to September; listen as Kate Smith belts out "God Bless America" and the flag is lowered for the night. Cape May "diamonds" (pebbles of pure, rounded quartz) wash up on this privately owned beach not far from the Cape May Lighthouse. Just off shore, the hulking wreck of the concrete ship Atlantus pokes out from the water and creates a tideflow that causes the quartz diamonds to collect in such abundance. Find your own, or visit the gift shops where they sell them already cut down and mounted in jewelry. Then, stop into the on-site Sunset Beach Grille for homemade crab cakes.