Cape May, NJ is America's oldest seashore resort. People began coming to Cape May to enjoy the beaches as early as the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War. By the early 1800s families, wealthy industrialists, and even Presidents were come to this small town on the southern tip of New Jersey to enjoy the a respite from the heat of the summer. 

Today, a journey to Cape May takes about 90 minutes from Philadelphia or a little over 3 hours from New York City. Today's visitors travel major highways like the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway or cross the Delaware Bay on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. They travel in climate-controlled vehicles often with an abundance of entertainment at thier fingertips and periodic places to stop and rest along the journey.

With the exception of summer traffic backups, this makes for a reasonably pleasant journey, despite the occasional call of “Are we there yet?” from the backseat.  This was of course not always the case.

The tale of the early travelers to Cape May is woven into the fabric of Historic Cold Spring Village. This site will help you explore the ways the Village preserves those tales and help you to better understnad the ways travelers and tourists in the 18th and 19th centuries made their way to the same remote sandy beaches of Cape May, NJ that you are enjoying today.