You can smell it.
The grill smoke drifting over the neighborhood. The sound of someone dragging lawn furniture across a deck two houses over. The Shore traffic that starts building Thursday. Memorial Day weekend is here — and if you have been waiting all spring for the moment summer finally arrives in New Jersey, I understand completely.
But I have to be honest with you about what’s waiting at the Shore this weekend.
After a stretch of genuine heat this week, things cool back down in time for the holiday. Highs near Barnegat Light — which I think of as the rough midpoint of the Jersey Shore — are sitting in the upper 50s Friday, around 60 Saturday with clouds and scattered showers, climbing to the upper 60s Sunday and Monday with more clouds and the occasional shower mixed in. The ocean temperature right now is 50 to 52 degrees. That is not beach water. That is cold plunge territory. That is a wetsuit-required situation for anyone planning more than a thirty-second dare.
It is like Thanksgiving. You can smell the turkey cooking. You just cannot eat it yet.
The good news is that New Jersey in late May offers more ways to spend a long weekend well than most people use — and most of them are either free or close to it. Pack the hoodie. Here is where to go.
Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
The Shore is worth the drive — just not for the water
Here is what I will say in defense of going to the Shore anyway: a cold, cloudy Memorial Day weekend on the boardwalk is still a Jersey experience worth having. The crowds are lighter than they will be in July. Parking is easier. The food is the same.
And this year in Wildwood there is something genuinely worth seeing — the famous Sightseer Tram Cars are back for the season, but now being pulled by electric Volvo SUVs instead of the old battery tractor units that date back generations. The passenger cars are the same. The “watch the tram car, please” voice is the same. The pull of the thing is now a Volvo EX-40. People have opinions about this. I will let you form yours from the boardwalk.
A walk on the boards at Wildwood or the promenade in Cape May in a sweatshirt with a coffee in your hand and the ocean smell hitting you — that is not nothing. That is actually pretty good. Just don’t pay for a beach badge to sit in the wind.
Cape May County Zoo: free, and genuinely worth it
If you are heading south anyway, the Cape May County Zoo is free — no admission, no parking fee, nothing. It is one of the most underrated stops in South Jersey and one of the best free days out in the entire state. More than 550 animals, a giraffe exhibit, a carousel and enough walking to wear out the kids completely by 2 p.m. On a cloudy 60-degree day it is actually ideal — no brutal sun, no overheating, just a genuinely good afternoon that costs you nothing but gas money to get there.
SEE ALSO: The best swimming in NJ this summer — no ocean required
Batsto Village | photos by EJ
Batsto Village | photos by EJ
State parks: the best free Memorial Day option in NJ
New Jersey’s state parks are where this weekend actually rewards you. The trails are dry, the foliage is full, and the crowds that descend on the Shore largely skip the woods entirely.
Wharton State Forest in the Pinelands has dozens of miles of trails and the Batsto Village historic site, which costs nothing to walk around. Hacklebarney State Park in Morris County is one of the most underrated hikes in the state — a boulder-strewn gorge that takes about two hours and leaves you genuinely surprised it exists this close to Route 206. High Point State Park in Sussex County puts you at the highest elevation in New Jersey with a monument at the top that feels like it belongs in a different century.
All of them are open. None of them require a wetsuit.
Lake swimming and inland water: the shore alternative
The swimming piece I published last week laid this out in detail, but Memorial Day weekend is exactly when this argument gets practical. Lake Marcia at High Point State Park opens for the season this weekend — lifeguards on duty, sandy beach, no salt. Spruce Run Reservoir in Clinton has beach access. Swartswood Lake in Sussex County is one of the cleanest swimming lakes in the state.
The water is warmer than the ocean. The crowds are smaller than the Shore. And when someone asks what you did Memorial Day weekend, “I swam in a lake in Sussex County” is a better story than “I sat on a cold beach in a hoodie and went home.”
What this weekend is actually good for
The forecast is not a disaster. Upper 60s Sunday and Monday with some sun breaking through is a very workable late May day. And who knows, it may turn out better! Mother Nature can be surprising. Stay up to date with Chief Meteorologist Dan Zarrow’s always updated 5 Day Forecast!
It looks like a sweatshirt weekend, not a raincoat weekend. It is a weekend for a long drive down a county road with the windows cracked, stopping somewhere you have never stopped before, finding a diner that is open and busy and calling it a win.
The Shore will be ready in a few weeks. The ocean will get there. This weekend, the rest of New Jersey is yours — and most of it is free.
CHECK OUT: All the free beaches in New Jersey
The Jersey Shore is notorious for charging for access to the beaches. But there are a few that let you get in for free.
