What is there to do with a week off from work in the middle of August? Go to the beach of course! While I’m currently living in the Boston area, I went to school in Baltimore, Maryland, and still have a lot of friends in the area. I decided to use my time off to visit some friends in B’more for the weekend, then hit the Delaware Beaches for a few days with a friend whose parents have a house near Rehoboth.
This wasn’t my first experience at the Delaware Beaches. The week before I graduated college, my classmates and I embarked on a long-lived tradition: beach week. Then, the destination was Dewey Beach, a tiny beach town just south of Rehoboth, known for its lively nightlife and local beach bars. It was… an eventful week, to put it lightly. I think my liver might still be recovering 15 months later. This time, our destination was the Millsboro/Rehoboth Beach area. It was a much quieter atmosphere, but hey – I’m not in college anymore!
My new favorite beach is the one at Cape Henlopen State Park. It was very easy to drive to, had plenty of parking, and for $8 for an out-of-state license plate (Delaware tags are only $4!), it was a steal compared to what I’m used to paying on Cape Cod. The beach was busy near the entrance, but if you walked just a little way away, it was much more private. People had even driven on to the sand with their 4-wheel drive vehicles and were fishing from the shore. There are public bathrooms with showers and changing areas, and a little snack shack that had some great homemade lemonade – it really hit the spot, seeing as it was extremely hot out.
After a nap on the beach, I realized just how much sun I was getting, so we decided to call it a day pretty early. Sometimes, just the process of getting to a beach makes you want to spend a lot of time there to justify the effort of getting set up. Here, it wasn’t the case. Everything was so easy I didn’t mind leaving after only a few hours.
While downtown Rehoboth Beach wasn’t quite as wild as Dewey, it was still a good time. In the few days I was there, we tried a few different restaurants, and I didn’t have a bad meal. If you’re looking for a party, Dewey is definitely a great place to go, but if you’re looking for a more relaxing vacation destination, Rehoboth might be better. Either way, there’s something for everyone at the Delaware Beaches (and I didn’t even get started on the tax-free outlets…!).
