Start from 32 curated places around Avalon, NJ, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Cafe Loren
The Shore's longest-running fine-dining BYOB, a candlelit room on Dune Drive where the menu leans toward coastal French-American — pan-roasted halibut, lobster scampi, veal with crab — executed with real care. It's been the benchmark for a special-occasion dinner in Avalon since it opened, and locals still can't imagine the island without it. Grab a bottle of white Burgundy before heading over and you'll understand why tables book out every summer.
Summer Salt
A four-course prix-fixe dinner series right on the Avalon boardwalk, with every plate built around what Cape May County's farms and fishing boats delivered that day. The ocean-facing open-air room means you're eating scallops with a sea breeze, which is the whole point. It's BYOB and deliberately unhurried — not the place for a quick bite, but exactly right for a long summer evening.
Trails & outdoors
Avalon Dune and Beach Trail
A 1.1-mile loop through one of the last remnant maritime forests on the New Jersey barrier islands — the trail moves from tall canopy trees through shrub forest to open dune and finally to the beach, tracing a succession that once covered the entire mid-Atlantic coast. Short enough to do in flip-flops but ecologically dense enough to hold your attention the whole way. The Nature Conservancy maintains it and the access parking is a small lot off Dune Drive.
Stone Harbor Point Trail
A 3.7-mile out-and-back along the undeveloped southern tip of Stone Harbor, where the Atlantic meets the back bay and the only company is shorebirds and the occasional fisherman. The terrain is flat beach and packed shell — easy walking but fully exposed, so sun and wind are real factors. This is the trail locals mean when they say "go for a walk to the point."
Things to do
Avalon Seawatch
One of the longest-running seabird counts in North America — trained NJ Audubon observers station themselves on the beach between 8th and 9th Streets in Avalon from September through December, counting southbound seabirds that pass the northernmost tip of the island. In peak weeks, close to 100,000 loons, scoters, gannets, and jaegers stream past in a single day. Visitors bring chairs and binoculars and watch alongside the counters.
The Wetlands Institute Programs
Beyond the museum exhibits, the Wetlands Institute runs naturalist-led programs that put you directly into the ecosystem — back-bay boat rides through the salt marsh channels, paddleboard and kayak tours, horseshoe crab tagging programs, and live animal encounters with terrapins and marsh birds. It's the most hands-on family nature program in Cape May County and the programs run through summer on the institute's own dock.
Landmarks & sights
Avalon Beach
Seven miles of wide, clean barrier-island beach that stays quieter than the more famous Jersey Shore towns — Avalon enforces a no-vehicles, low-density approach that keeps the sand from feeling like a parking lot. The northern end near 80th Street tends to be the least crowded, and the dune system here is one of the most intact on the mid-Atlantic coast. Surf fishing is excellent at dawn before badge hours start.
The Wetlands Institute
A working wetlands research center on Stone Harbor Boulevard with an elevated marsh boardwalk, a live-animal aquarium, and programs that get you into the estuary by kayak or paddleboard. The 720-foot walkway over 6,000 acres of salt marsh is the kind of thing that makes a shore visit feel like you actually learned something — and the terrapin research exhibits are genuinely fascinating for all ages. One of the best half-day rainy-day options on the island.