June 29, 2017
New Jerseyans sure love Ocean City.
Beachgoers named the Cape May County Jersey Shore town the Garden State's favorite beach in a statewide poll conducted by the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium that was announced Thursday.
The consortium surveyed 7,000 people online between May and June and announced its anticipated results at the Ocean City Music Pier, according to a news release.
The poll's been going strong since 2008 but has seen some adjustments in recent years, according to the Atlantic City Press. It once found the state's top 10 beaches but expanded its findings after Superstorm Sandy damaged beach towns along the coast.
The consortium found that Brigantine and Margate came in as New Jersey's second and third favorite beach towns but also organized the top five beaches in the state's four main coastal counties, granting Ocean City, Brigantine, Seaside Heights and Asbury Park the top titles in Cape May, Atlantic, Ocean and Monmouth counties.
It's been a good year for the Jersey Shore. Back in May, TripAdvisor named Wildwood Crest the nation's No. 1 best summer vacation destination, while Budget Travel, an online resource that aims to help explorers save some cash, dubbed Asbury Park the "coolest" small town in the U.S.
Find all the top beach towns in each county for 2017, as determined by the consortium's statewide poll, below:
Cape May
1. Ocean City
2. Sea Isle City
3. Wildwood Crest
4. Cape May
5. Wildwood
Atlantic County
1. Brigantine
2. Margate
3. Atlantic City
4. Longport
5. Ventnor
Ocean County
1. Seaside Heights
2. Beach Haven
3. Point Pleasant Beach
4. Island Beach State Park
5. Ship Bottom
Monmouth County
1. Asbury Park
2. Spring Lake
3. Sandy Hook
4. Belmar
5. Ocean Grove
