Update: We went to Avalon for the whole day. Lounged in the sand, collected shells (I cant ever go home without at least one), ate seafood & then some ice cream.

The town is small, quite, clean & simply perfect for a day at the shore.

Thanks for all of your help

I've got a couple days off during the week and was considering a day trip with my 10-year-old human fish of a daughter to the beaches in Delaware. I don't know that I want to drive the 2 hours to Bethany Beach, but I was thinking of some of the beaches further up the bay, like Kitt's Hummock, Big Stone Beach, or Bower's Beach. We are looking for someplace where we can actually swim, won't be in gigantic crowds of people, and eat some seafood and really relax and have fun. Any ideas?

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GMonkey--I would just go ahead and make the trip down to Bethany or Dewey Beach. There's a state park on State Rd 1 somewhere around Dewey where you can park and it's just pretty much you and the beach, if you're looking to avoid crowds. At least, that has been my experience going there.

That's not true!!! Point Pleasant has an awesome bar on the beach, where they will bring your drinks out to the water. There's also another town with a bar on the beach, but I can't remember right now.

Island State Park, right outside of Seaside Heights, NJ

$6.00 a car load on weekdays, $10 on weekends, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, off season $5 on weekdays, $6 on weekends.

You can have a picnic on the beach, they have showers and a changing area that comes included with the park.

I've been going to there since I was 5 years old, Ocean City is nice for weekend and week visits, but for day trips, it will take you under 90 minutes to get there, and if you know the back roads like I do, it takes you 40 minutes from Philly and Lower Bucks.

I can't stand the wild elements of Wildwood, a friend of mine is selling his place there, he fished on the weekends, but if he wanted to do boardwalk activity, he went over to Ocean City, because some of the teenage gangs on the boardwalks of Wildwood scare him and his wife.