Long Beach Island’s beaches named among best for families in U.S.

     Harvey Cedars Beach Patrol image.

    Harvey Cedars Beach Patrol image.

    Long Beach Island offers some of the United States’ best beaches for family vacations, according to a travel website. 

    In compiling its top ten list, Family Vacation Critic says the selected beaches deliver “a chance for everyone to relax, with the convenience of calm, lifeguard-protected waters; restrooms/showers; and nearby attractions.”

    LBI joins Ponce Inlet, Florida; Jones Beach State Park, New York; Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; Coronado Beach, California; Balboa Beach, California; North Beach Park, Wisconsin; Coast Guard Beach, Massachusetts; Weirs Beach, New Hampshire; and Seaside Beach, Oregon. 

    In describing the southern Ocean County barrier island comprised of numerous municipalities, the travel website says “nobody does a classic beach vacation like Long Beach Island.” Family Vacation Critic cites the 18 miles of shoreline, various accommodations, and numerous offerings off the beach, including Fantasy Island, the main amusement attraction on the island.

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    The latest honor is just another in a string of recent accolades for the Jersey Shore.

    In February, Expedia named LBI’s Beach Haven as among 21 of the East Coast’s most scenic towns.

    The community, known as the Queen City because of its Victorian and Edwardian charm, was first established as a summer resort to accommodate wealthy Philadelphia residents.

    According to the borough’s website, the Queen Anne style mansions built at the end of the 1800s “are among the most beautiful historic buildings in the state.”

    It was also the location of the first of numerous Jersey Shore shark attacks that spurred panic during the summer of 1916. In the Beach Haven incident, a 25-year-old man bled to death after a shark bit his legs while playing with his dog off the Engleside Avenue beach.

    Further south, in January Coastal Living magazine named Cape May as one of country’s happiest seaside towns, and Ocean City was named the country’s beach town last year in a reader survey conducted by the same magazine.

    Self-billed as “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” Ocean City was named the state’s most popular beach in 2009, 2014, and 2015.

    In 2015, Travel + Leisure magazine ranked Monmouth County’s Asbury Park as number 10 in a list of 50 destinations to travel, ranging from the tropical Andaman Islands off India to Douro Valley in Portugal and everything in between.

    The magazine in 2016 again bestowed honors on the Jersey Shore when its residents voted Cape May and Atlantic City as among 15 of the country’s favorite beach towns in the publication’s “America’s Favorite Places” survey.

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