Rehoboth Beach

Rehoboth Beach is a small Atlantic resort town in Sussex County, Delaware, with 1,108 year-round residents and a summer population that swells past 25,000. It calls itself the Nation's Summer Capital, a name earned from generations of Washingtonians who have treated it as the capital's beach. The town is compact: a one-mile boardwalk, a main avenue running straight to the sand, and a grid of cottages and small hotels behind it. Lewes and Cape Henlopen sit just north, Dewey Beach just south, and the whole place runs on beach time from May to September.

Start on the boardwalk, which runs the length of the beach past food stands, arcades and benches made for people-watching. At its heart is Funland, a family amusement park that has operated since 1962, with vintage rides, games and a haunted house squeezed into a small lot on the boards. The Rehoboth Beach Bandstand, near the top of Rehoboth Avenue, has hosted free summer concerts since 1963. Just north of town, Cape Henlopen State Park offers wider beaches, nature trails, a fishing pier and a campground among the pines. Cyclists ride the Junction and Breakwater Trail and the Gordons Pond Trail between Rehoboth and Lewes.

Eating is a main event here. Dogfish Head opened its original brewpub on Rehoboth Avenue in 1995, and it still pours experimental beers steps from the beach. Grotto Pizza, founded in Rehoboth in 1960, is a Delaware institution, and boardwalk stands sell the expected fries, saltwater taffy and soft serve. Rehoboth Avenue and Baltimore Avenue hold the denser restaurant scene, from seafood houses to fine dining, and Dewey Beach, a mile south, takes over after dark with its louder bar strip. For a town this small, the dining scene punches well above its weight.

Most visitors sleep within a few blocks of the sand, in boardwalk hotels, small inns, beach cottages and condo rentals. Prices peak in July and August, and summer weekends book out early. Motels and the Tanger Outlets line Delaware Route 1 on the way into town, with more lodging in Lewes. You can park the car for a whole weekend: the centre, beach and restaurants are all walkable, DART First State buses run local and seasonal beach routes, and the Cape May-Lewes Ferry docks in Lewes, about five miles north, for drivers crossing Delaware Bay.

Late May through September is the season, with the warmest water in August and the biggest crowds around July Fourth. June and September bring warm days with thinner crowds, and October has its own draw: the Sea Witch Festival, the Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz Festival and mild beach weather. The Independent Film Festival follows in November. Winter is quiet and cold, with many businesses on reduced hours, though the outlets and some restaurants stay open year-round. Two to three days covers the beach, the boardwalk and a ride to Cape Henlopen.

Rehoboth is the anchor stop on a Delaware beaches road trip, reached by Delaware Route 1 down the coast. Lewes, with its historic centre and the ferry to Cape May, New Jersey, is ten minutes north; Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach and Ocean City, Maryland continue south down the same highway. It pairs naturally with a Delmarva Peninsula drive, crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Washington and Baltimore or coming down from Philadelphia, and it works as the beach overnight between the cities of the Northeast Corridor and the slower Eastern Shore.