South Cape May Meadows Preserve – Cape May, Cape May County, NJ Distance – 1.75 miles of trail (but spur requires some backtracking, plus can walk down to the beach at certain times of the year), we did 2.4 miles here. Type – Loop with an out-and-back spur, as well as a spur that connects with Cape May Point State Park. Difficulty: 1 of 10

Website – The Nature Conservancy Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Beach and marsh Surface – mostly dirt, sand, and shells

Trailheads: Main entrance from parking lot –  38°56’16.33″N,  74°56’40.97″W Connector trail from Cape May Point State Park (spur off of [...]

Five years ago, I started a blog about hiking in South Jersey as an excuse to go exploring with my then one year old son.  I expected maybe four people to ever read it, and that estimate included if my mom could figure out how to get to it to see pictures of her grandson (she hasn’t yet).

Five years (and two kids later), we’ve explored 166 trails in South Jersey and counting.  We’ve made many new friends, been invited to part of some amazing experiences, and have had a total of ELEVEN people read our posts (okay, maybe more like fourteen people… wait, 700,000 hits so far!?).

So, in celebration of five years, we present the Top 20 Trails in South [...]

We had a quite a 2017.  Adorable new baby to hike with, fancy new website, and some media attention starting with a feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He likes hiking too.

It was quite a year on the trails too.  In 2017, we hiked about 780 miles, including hiking 31 new-to-us trails in South Jersey!  So as we do each year, our 10 favorite trails that we hiked for the first time this year:

Cape Island Creek Paddle – Cape May Lower Township, Cape May County, NJ Distance – 3 3/4 miles total Time – Took us 2 hours total Type – Out-and-back paddle Difficulty: 3 of 10 – low bridges.  Potential for tide issues. Total score: 6 of 10

Website – None Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Tidal marshes

Put ins (these are less than a tenth of a mile apart): Spicer’s Creek Boat Ramp – 38 57.046 ` 74 54.593 Miss Chris Marina (if renting from them, which we did) –  38°57’0.56″N,  74°54’38.30″W

Take outs: Same