Chasing summer nostalgia in timeless Cape May

I’d dipped my toes in this water every summer for the better part of my childhood, but the cold still made me shudder. Jump in quickly and get it over with, or slowly wade in to acclimate my body: neither seems like a very appealing option in the moment. But on this trip, the sun made up for the Atlantic’s late summer chill, as I tipped my face to the sky like a baby chick under a heat lamp.

“Aunt Lolo, come in, come in!” my 12-year-old niece Ella exclaimed, her boogie board already in place for the next rideable wave. Hearing the order from someone one-third of my age made the decision for me: all in it was. The shock turned me into a temporary opera singer while Ella erupted in giggles at my less-than-graceful entrance; I wiped the saltwater sting from my eyes. But it was worth it. This is why we came to Cape May: to indulge in the simple pleasures of recreating our 1990s family vacations on the Jersey Shore, and to share the nostalgic magic with younger generations.

Cape May has always felt like a link to yesteryear, and in the nearly two decades since I spent summer childhood vacations here, almost nothing has changed. It’s the oldest seaside resort in the country, and since 1976, it’s been the only entire town in the US designated as a National Historic Landmark — which is why historic gingerbread Victorians still line the streets and horse-drawn carriages clip-clop past at dusk. On my most recent trip, I went right back to where I left it in my teens: at the Washington Street Mall, the pedestrian stretch of shops and restaurants where live music blends in the air with the scent of fresh waffle cones.

That appeal is part of why we keep coming back. Cape May sits at the very bottom of New Jersey, about two hours from Philadelphia and around three from New York City. It’s close enough that the drive down feels like a chance to build excitement, rather than something to endure.

A good Cape May trip doesn’t ask much of you. Sand, sun and the willingness to slow all the way down — that’s the whole assignment. It doesn’t take long to fall back into the usual rhythm: mornings on the beach, though we always set aside one day for a Belgian waffle on the porch at the Mad Batter, because brunch in an old Victorian is about as Cape May as it gets. When the afternoon heat sets in, it’s back to our rental to take a dip in the pool before drifting back out for some boardwalk souvenir shopping, a round of mini-golf or a leisurely bike ride. A beach cruiser is non-negotiable here, and pedaling down these streets feels like riding through the pages of a storybook. Most of our bike rides end in a pre-dinner sugar fix, stopping for frozen custard from Kohr’s Bros, Italian ice from Rita’s, or saltwater taffy from The Original Fudge Kitchen.

If anything in Cape May had changed, it was the chowder. My younger sister Meagan and I take this seriously. The bowls we grew up on came from Henry’s on the Beach, which came creamy, clam-packed, and flawlessly seasoned. Yet when we arrived, we were devastated to find that Henry’s illustrated sign, with an ocean wave and a lighthouse sandwiching its name, was no longer there.

We ran a Goldilocks-style crawl anyway, trying to find the chowder of our past. One broth came out thinner than we wanted. Another had too many potatoes for our liking. One place was doing Manhattan-style only, which in the parameters of our search didn’t count as chowder. Then the Lobster House, where we waited an hour and reservations are not accepted, delivered what we were looking for: a thick, creamy clam chowder that tasted a lot like my Cape May vacations of the 1990s.

We’d always been intrigued by Cape May’s haunted reputation, and now that Ella was old enough to be curious instead of scared, we leaned in, boarding the Ghosts of Cape May Tour by trolley. On a multi-generational trip, it can be tricky to please everyone. But on this one, the whole family sat rapt while the guide ran through the town’s unexplained happenings. I got hooked enough that my partner and I went back for the next-level Voices from Beyond tour of an estate from 1879, rumored to be the most haunted building in town. Listening to real EVPs — electronic voice phenomena — from the estate’s nine resident ghosts was about as bone-chilling as that first plunge into the Atlantic.

One ritual never requires a reservation: sunset on the beach. Whether we wandered to the main public beach after dinner or made the three-mile drive west to Sunset Beach on the Delaware Bay, it became an unspoken rule nearly every evening. Sunset Beach’s main draw isn’t just the namesake views, but the shoreline itself, where you can comb for “Cape May diamonds:” small bits of quartz crystals, naturally polished by the ocean.

Offshore sits a piece of history: the concrete World War I ship SS Atlantus, which broke from its moorings and ran aground in 1926. A full century on, it still refuses to disappear into the bay. We try to time one sundowner here for the flag-lowering ceremony, a tradition Sunset Beach has kept nearly every evening in season since 1973. It’s set to Taps, using flags that once draped veterans’ caskets. Next time, we’ll also add The Fish House, a newer seaside spot with fresh seafood and craft cocktails, to the evening rotation.

I’ve come to Cape May in nearly every season, and even in the quiet shoulder months there’s always something here tugging at the nostalgia. Year to year, Cape May doesn’t change much, and that’s exactly the point. When the place stays the same, you start to notice everything that hasn’t: how much you’ve grown, what you’ve let go of, who you’ve brought along this time. That’s the quiet gift of somewhere only a few hours from home: you can return again and again and let it hand back a little of your childhood each visit.