Middletown

Bayshore Waterfront Park

Date visited: 5/26/2023

This is a great dog friendly beach, located in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown Township New Jersey! Like Plumb Beach in Brooklyn, NY, leashed dogs are allowed here all year, but this is a much nicer beach. We walked the length of the beach and back, about 3 1/2 miles on a truly gorgeous day. The waves are small, as the beach opens out to Sandy Hook bay. You can see the New York City skyline in the distance. Besides dog walking, fishing is a popular activity on this beach, with many people fishing on the end near the marina. The sun-bathers are generally found in the middle section where the beach is less rocky and shelly. My GPS directed us to the Marina end, where there was a lot with only a couple of cars, but there is a main parking area near the middle of the beach that was about 80% full. The beach and the parking is completely free, and there is even a real bathroom as well. The only negative is that there was a fair amount of trash on the beach, mostly on the more natural beach parts used by the people fishing. I saw bottle caps, and plastic containers. Other than that, this was a very fun visit that was worth the 3 to 4 hour commute from Connecticut!

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Sandy Hook Beach

Date visited: 10/5/2024

I just refuse to let go of summer! We drove three and a half hours to this wonderful beach, where temperatures were in the mid seventies and the skies were bright and sunny! The beach is part of the Sandy Hook National Recreation Area, which covers most of the Sandy Hook "barrier spit". Dogs are allowed on the ocean facing beaches in the off-season, from September 16th through March 15th. They are allowed on the bay side beaches year round, but we didn't have enough time to explore the bay side at all. A fee is charged in the summer months, from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, but it is free in the off-season. The beach is broken up into sections. We parked at "Beach E". There was no rhyme or reason to choosing that beach. It's simply where the GPS led us! We headed north along the beach wading through the edge of the waves, for a little over two miles before turning around and heading back. There are great views of the Manhattan skyline to the north, while the beach itself opens up to the waters of the Atlantic. This is the best beach we visited in New Jersey so far. There is much more to explore here. Due to poor planning on my part, we left the house too late and didn't arrive until about 2PM. While it may have felt like summer here, it was actually early October, so it gets darks shortly after 6PM. We didn't have enough time to explore the other areas as much as we should have. I probably should have cut the beach walk shorter, but I was enjoying the weather too much! After our walk, we did drive to Fort Hancock, on the northern tip of Sandy Hook and were able to do a little bit of exploring there, before it got dark.

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Date visited: 9/20/2025

The unofficial end of summer is Labor Day weekend, but this was the last weekend of the "official" summer season. It was a great time to return to this wonderful National Park. While dogs are allowed at the bay side beaches year round, they aren't allowed on the ocean facing beaches until September 16th. Temps were in the low 70's and it was breezy, so the beach wasn't that busy. For this trip, we parked at Lot C (Beach "C"), and first headed north through Beach D and up to Beach E where we started from on our first visit here. We continued or walk utilizing the Multi-Use path, and headed over to the bay side beach at the Plum Island section of the park. After that, we crossed back over to the ocean beach at Beach B and headed back along the shore to the rocky area at Beach C where we started from. Our walk was about 4.5 miles total. My only complaint about this beautiful beach is that the area of the ocean beach just north of the rocks contained a lot of garbage along the shoreline. This is a problem with many beaches, as the people who come here fishing like to leave their trash on the beach. The policy of not providing trash cans probably adds to this. They charge a fee to visit here from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, so you would think some of the money raised could pay for trash pickup, especially considering that many of the beach areas didn't have life guards this summer. Of course, if people just cleaned up after themselves, that would work too!

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Fort Hancock

Date visited: 10/5/2024

This is the area on the northern tip of Sandy Hook. We visited here after our adventure on the beach. This is an old military fort. By the time we arrived, we didn't have much daylight left, so we were only able to explore a small section of the fort. We first stopped at the Sandy Hook lighthouse, and then made are way through the fort. There is a paved bike trail that runs through Sandy Hook that can be used to access the different sections. Some sections of the old fort are open to the public, while others are fenced off. There is also a short trail that leads to an observation platform with great views of New York harbor and the Manhattan skyline. The coolest part of our visit were the deer. There was one doe that was running around on the fenced off fort, and a couple others that were grazing on trees near one of the beach access paths. One in particular had no problem letting me get real close to take her photo while she was munching away on tree leaves! Sandy Hook is a cool place to visit, especially this time of the year when the dogs have access to the whole area, and it's still warm enough to enjoy the beach. I do wish I planned this trip better and arrived earlier, so I could have explored more of the fort.

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Date visited: 10/13/2024

We were in nearby Sea Bright, so I decided to come back and explore more of the fort that we weren't able to get to last time. Unlike some of the other ruins of the old fort, the public has access to Battery Gunnison. There are two large canons sitting on top of one of the fort buildings. Behind the fort, is Gunnison Beach. We also took some photos at the canon monument on the west side of the peninsula.

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Gunnison Beach

Date visited: 10/13/2024

This is another very scenic beach, part of the Sandy Hook National Recreation Area. We didn't take many pictures here. You can see why by the sign in the first photo below! Needless to say, this was a very interesting walk on a very crowded beach on a summer-like day in October. Mandy and Lexi got quite soaked by the high waves as we were walking along the edge of the shore.

North Beach

Date visited: 10/20/2024

This is the most remote of the beaches at Sandy Hook. It's normally accessed via a half mile trail through thick sand. We accessed it via Gunnison Beach, where we only needed to walk through a quarter mile trail through thick sand, and then headed north for a bit over two miles. We walked all the way to the northern tip of Sandy Hook and back. It was another warm day, with temps in the mid 70's. It made for a quiet and peaceful walk, with big waves, and a great view of the New York City skyline.

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Sandy Hook Multi-Use Path

Date visited: 9/20/2025

There's a popular multi-use path that runs through this park. We utilized the path as part of our 4.5 mile adventure around the southern end of the park. From the path we were able to visit the ocean side beaches as well as some of the bay side areas. We also accessed the Spermaceti Cove observation area and boardwalk, and those photos are included here as well.