Rated Beaches near Philadelphia

Highlights: Home of the Jersey Shore TV series; popular for weekend and summer gatherings; a big beach, a boardwalk, and amusements

Rated Beaches near Philadelphia Education website

Highlights: Known for its kitsch giant elephant; no hotels means accommodations are limited as are crowds

Highlights: President Biden's longtime summer home, with a wooden boardwalk, cool shops, and the cleanest water of any US coastal state

Highlights: A bit past its prime; best known for its beach, its music scene, and as the place where Bruce Springsteen established himself as a performer

Located at the southern tip of New Jersey, Cape May has been a popular summer resort destination since the Victorian era, and it retains many vintage Victorian gingerbread mansions. The city provides a unique environment for visitors and celebrates (and retains) more of its history than other New Jersey beach cities.

Long Beach Island is located off central New Jersey and has a lot of varied beach towns along its 18-mile length. Towns like North Beach and Harvey Cedar have ultra-luxury summer homes and marinas filled with expensive yachts, while towns like Ship Bottom and Beach Haven have amusement parks, miniature golf courses, and lots of things to eat and buy.

The next town over from Ocean City, Sea Isle City also offers a quaint, small-town beach experience with a bit of a nightlife scene.

Like the Coney Island of the Jersey Shore, Wildwood retains its reputation as a place where the party goes on all summer long. The city sports a long, wide wooden boardwalk, which has multiple amusement piers. These are small amusement parks located on long piers jutting out into the ocean.

Perhaps the wealthiest of all the South Jersey beach cities, Avalon is known for its wide, unspoiled beaches and sand dunes, as well as the huge mansions that line them. The town has a more laid-back, upscale feel and has more expensive shops and fine-dining restaurants than its other South Jersey neighbors.

The highlight of Ocean City is its long, wide, wood-planked, old-school boardwalk. The raised wooden boardwalk, as is found in many East Coast beach towns, offers miles of shops, stores, restaurants, cafés, and accommodations, with no roads or cars to separate them from the sand. Smaller than the city of the same name in Maryland, Ocean City, New Jersey is the best family beach near Philadelphia.