What Cape May Point is

Cape May Point is its own borough. Different municipality, different rules, different mood. Drive west out of Cape May City on Sunset Boulevard and the shops stop, the buildings drop to one and two storeys, and the streets go quiet.

Most of what people come for sits inside three properties: Cape May Point State Park, South Cape May Meadows and the beaches. The rest is houses. That’s not a criticism — it’s the point of the Point. But arrive with a plan and a snack.

What is not out here — read this first

Cape May Point State Park

This is the reason most people drive out, and it’s free to enter. The park sits at the very tip of the cape, wraps around a set of ponds and dunes, and holds the Cape May Lighthouse at 215 Lighthouse Avenue inside its grounds.

The trails and the beach

Boardwalk trails run out across the ponds and marsh to observation platforms, with a beach at the end. Flat, short, and manageable with a stroller on the boarded sections. Bring binoculars even if you don’t think of yourself as a birder — in migration the platforms are the best free show in the county.

The park beach is nothing like the city beachfront: dunes instead of a Promenade, no rental umbrella rows, no commercial anything behind you.

The lighthouse, briefly

The Cape May Lighthouse stands inside the park at 215 Lighthouse Avenue. It’s 157 feet 6 inches tall, was built in 1859, and you can climb it — 199 steps to the Watch Gallery. It’s owned by the State of New Jersey and operated by Cape May MAC.

Admission, seasonal hours and the combo ticket with the WWII tower are covered in our Cape May Lighthouse guide. Two things to carry with you today: the last climb is 15 minutes before closing, and you can’t climb in heels.

South Cape May Meadows

Managed by The Nature Conservancy, the Meadows is a restored wetland and dune preserve between the city and the Point, and it’s the walk we’d send a first-time visitor on if they only had an hour.

Flat trails, water on both sides, and a horizon with the lighthouse in it. In migration it’s thick with birds. In July it’s a place to walk at 7am before the heat.

Bring insect repellent from roughly June to September, and go early or late — this is a sunrise and sunset landscape, and midday flattens it.

The World War II Lookout Tower

On Sunset Boulevard, technically in Lower Township rather than the borough itself, stands a plain concrete cylinder that most drivers pass without a second look. It’s Fire Control Tower No. 23, built in 1942 as part of the Harbor Defense of the Delaware, and it is the last remaining freestanding World War II observation tower in New Jersey.

Inside, you climb to a sixth-floor spotting gallery where interpreters explain what the spotters were watching for. Looking out at the same water, it lands differently than it does from the road. On the way up is the Wall of Honor, with more than 160 photographs of veterans.

The combo is the obvious move if you’re doing both, and you almost certainly should — they’re minutes apart. Last climb is 15 minutes before closing, and the tower closes during lightning.

Hours vary by season and MAC publishes them on a rolling calendar rather than a fixed table. Call 609-884-5404 before you drive out.

Birding at the Point

Cape May Point is a funnel. Birds moving south down the Atlantic coast in autumn hit the end of the peninsula, look at fourteen miles of open Delaware Bay, and pile up here waiting for the right wind. The result is one of the densest concentrations of migrating raptors and songbirds in North America, and it happens in a borough you can walk across.

Autumn is the headline season — roughly September through November for hawks, falcons and songbirds. Spring brings a different cast northbound, and even high summer has shorebirds along the Meadows and the bay.

Cape May Bird Observatory

Run by New Jersey Audubon, the Cape May Bird Observatory is behind the counts, the walks and most of the expertise you’ll meet on the platforms. Their programme shifts with the season and the weather, so check what’s running the week you’re here.

Cape May MAC also runs a Natural Habitats trolley tour with the Bird Observatory if you’d rather be driven. Pricing is on our Cape May tours page.

Beaches and the Point's own tag rules

Three things to plan around:

The season starts later. In 2026 it runs June 13 to Labor Day, and only while lifeguards are on duty — about three weeks after the city season begins. Arrive at the Point in early June and there’s no tag to buy and no guard on the stand.

Daily tags are $10 and seasonal tags are $50 — or $40 before June 1. Under 12 is free.

Military and veteran families do better here. Active military and veterans get free tags and so do their immediate families, with ID. Cape May City extends that only to the service member.

Full price tables for both towns are on our Cape May beaches and beach tags guide.

The beaches themselves are the quietest guarded sand on the cape: dunes behind you instead of hotels. One footnote for 2026 — Cape May Point is not in this year’s federal replenishment round, so there’s no dredging to plan around.

Parking at the Point

Cape May Point State Park parking is free, abundant and RV-friendly. Not a sentence you get to write often about a shore destination in July. If your day is the lighthouse, the trails, the park beach and the WWII tower, park once and walk.

Away from the park you’re on residential streets — treat them as exactly that. Read the signs, don’t block driveways, and don’t assume no meter means no rule.

Higbee Beach — and the 2026 closure you need to know about

Higbee sits on the Delaware Bay side north of the Point, and it’s the wildest shoreline on Cape Island — undeveloped, driftwood-strewn, long a fixture for birders and dog walkers.

Don’t build a day around it this year. Trailheads, parking and access points are all subject to change while the work runs, and what was open in April may not be open in October. Confirm access first and keep the Meadows or the state park as your fallback. Note too that dogs are only permitted on Cape May City beaches November through March — rules differ property to property out here.

Half a day at the Point: how we'd spend it

Add a beach afternoon if it’s between June 13 and Labor Day and you’ve bought a Point tag — $10, and the quietest guarded beach you’ll sit on all week.