Start from 33 curated places around Cape May, NJ, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
The Ebbitt Room
The most accomplished kitchen in Cape May, set inside the Virginia Hotel and sourcing ingredients from the hotel's own Beach Plum Farm. Contemporary American with prix-fixe and a la carte options, a well-chosen wine list, and the kind of attentive service that makes you feel like the evening was designed for you. NJ Monthly and The Infatuation put it at the top of Cape May's dining hierarchy.
Washington Inn & Wine Bar
Housed in an 1848 plantation-style building, this is Cape May's classic special-occasion restaurant — upscale American with strong seafood, locally sourced produce, exceptional service, and an extensive wine cellar that has made it one of the most consistently voted top restaurants in the city. It's been the benchmark for formal Cape May dining for decades.
Trails & outdoors
South Cape May Meadows Trail
A 1-mile Nature Conservancy trail through freshwater ponds and coastal meadows between Cape May beach and Cape May Point — AllTrails rates it 4.7 stars with 360+ reviews. Shorebirds, herons, osprey, and migratory waterfowl concentrate around the ponds. The easiest and most rewarding birding walk in the area, completely accessible and completely free.
Cape May Point State Park - Blue Trail
The longest trail in Cape May Point State Park at 2 miles, covering the most complete range of the park's coastal habitats — dune, marsh, forest edge, and beach. Combined with the hawk watch platform, this is the full Cape May Point experience in a morning. The fall raptor migration makes October mornings here genuinely extraordinary.
Things to do
Cape May MAC Tours
The Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts operates trolley tours, ghost tours, walking tours of the Victorian district, architectural walking tours, and boat tours. The trolley tour is the best orientation to Cape May's Victorian architecture for first-time visitors; the ghost tours are a completely different evening experience. MAC also manages the lighthouse and Physick Estate.
East Lynne Theater Company
A professional Equity theater company in a restored 1853 church, staging plays focused on American theatrical heritage and contemporary American themes since 1980. One of two professional theaters in Cape May and the one with the more distinctive architecture and mission — it's a cultural anchor that punches well above what most Jersey Shore resort towns can claim.
Landmarks & sights
Cape May Lighthouse
199 steps to the top of this 1859 lighthouse, with views extending across the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay from one of New Jersey's most distinctive landmarks. The museum at the base covers the lighthouse's history and its role in maritime navigation. One of three historic lighthouses operated by the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Cape May Point State Park
The southernmost tip of New Jersey — 244 acres of freshwater marshland, coastal dunes, and beach on the Delaware Bay. The park is one of the most important migratory corridors on the Eastern Seaboard, with a hawk watch platform that counts 30,000+ raptors annually during fall migration. The three color-coded trails and a WWII bunker remnant on the beach make it one of the most layered state parks in the state.