As you begin your visit here you are in very good company. You see, there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who have experienced Victorian Cape May before – and those who have yet to come here. You are, after all, in America’s oldest seaside resort. Travelers have been making Cape May their destination since the 1600’s, and in this lovely town where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Delaware Bay at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, a lot of history has been made. Cape May was once called Cape Island, but in 1623 Dutch explorer Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey led three ships around the cape, and following the traditions of the time he named the cape after himself as Cape Mey. We can forgive his hubris assuming he had no knowledge of the fact that the Kechemeches (Kech-ah-mech-ees), a sub-tribe of the Lenni-Lenapes Native Americans, had made the cape their “resort” of choice long before the good captain and his companions ever laid eyes on it. Settlers later anglicized the name to Cape May. New England whalers came south in search of land to farm, and for places to build ships and set out to sea in their whaling season, and others came to fish and till the land, as well. The community evolved into a place where visitors came to find ocean breezes, salt air, and the therapy of sunshine and ocean waters. Hotels were built, and fire, the great enemy of every town or city at that time, was the main reason Cape May became Victorian Cape. Two fires, one in 1869 and a second one in 1878 that destroyed 35 acres and a number of hotels, resulted in the rebuilding of the town in the Victorian style. Cape May became known as the “Queen of the Seaside Resorts.” Many other resort areas were built along the New Jersey coast during this period, and the town experienced a decline in popularity, but that changed when the National Register of Historic Places officially recognized the immense architectural value of Cape May’s Victorian mansions and cottages in the 1960’s, and the rest, as they say, is history – but a modern history of quietly inviting tree-lined streets, warm and inviting hotels, wonderful restaurants, terrific places to shop, a great mall for shopping and people-watching, and a fantastic beach and promenade for dolphin-watching (and more people-watching), and sun and fun on the sand and in the surf.