Photos by Victor Block unless otherwise noted

My main bit of advice to visitors to Cape May, at the southern end of New Jersey´s famed Jersey Shore: Look up! That’s where you´ll find most the delights of this town of around 2,800, a drive of some 2½ hours south from New York City and just under two hours from Philadelphia. The United States´ oldest seashore resort, has been catering to vacationers since pre-Revolutionary days, although there were probably a lot fewer T-shirt shops at the time. There's evidence that even earlier "tourists" in the form of the nearby Kechemeche tribe came there in summer to hunt and fish. Later, the shady tree-lined streets and colorful homes of Cape May became the playground of 19th- and early-20th-century presidents including Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Chester Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison, who sought refuge there from the humidity of Washington DC summers. Not bad references!

read post