Start from 25 curated places around Stone Harbor, NJ, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Quahog's Seafood Shack and Bar
The Infatuation's Stone Harbor pick — a seafood shack with a distinctly Caribbean-influenced South American flair, serving shrimp ceviche, crispy fish bites, and creative seafood preparations that go well beyond the standard Shore fish house. The BBQ fish ribs and the ceviche are the specific dishes with their own following.
Chanterelle
A BYOB fine dining room in Stone Harbor with a modern American menu featuring west coast halibut, pork chops, and roasted wild mushrooms alongside a five-course tasting menu option — the most formally ambitious kitchen in a town otherwise dominated by upscale-casual seafood.
Trails & outdoors
Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary Trails
Four short trails through the 21-acre old-growth maritime forest that makes this sanctuary the most unusual nature access in any Jersey Shore town — the heronry above you and the toad chorus below combine in a way that has no equivalent on the developed Shore.
Cape May Point State Park Trails
A 25-minute drive from Stone Harbor and the best trail system in the region — three interlocking paths through coastal dune, pond, marsh, and forest habitat in a national park adjacent to one of the most important bird migration sites in the eastern United States.
Things to do
Wetlands Institute Summer Programs
A full summer programming calendar at a working research institute — back-bay boat rides, kayak tours, live animal encounters, terrapin nest surveys, and guided beach walks that deliver naturalist-led education in a way that most Jersey Shore activities don't attempt.
Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary Guided Tours
Naturalist-led walking tours of the heronry sanctuary — the guided format dramatically enhances a visit by providing context on the colonial nesting behavior, the maritime forest plant succession, and the sanctuary's conservation history as the first NJ National Natural Landmark.
Landmarks & sights
Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary
The first National Natural Landmark designated in New Jersey — a 21-acre old-growth maritime forest inside the town itself where great egrets and great blue herons nest in visible colonies from May through August. No other town on the Jersey Shore can offer a nesting heronry in its own residential core.
Stone Harbor Beach
One of the quieter and better-managed Cape May County beaches — wide, clean, and with a density cap that keeps the summer population substantially lower than the towns further north on the barrier island. The town invests in beach quality as a matter of community identity.