Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area   

Route 36
Highlands, NJ 7732
732-872-5970
www.nps.gov/gate/index.htm

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Keep the boardwalks, amusements and louder-than-loud beachfront bars that pepper the Jersey Shore. For a true beach experience, with rolling sand dunes, wide strips of white sand and the sounds of the waves echoing in your ears, you need travel no farther than Sandy Hook. Part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, which is intended to preserve open space all around New York Harbor, Sandy Hook offers six and a half miles of sandy beaches and a wide array of facilities. As an added bonus for those who hate tan lines, the Gunnison Beach section of the park is an officially sanctioned clothing-optional beach -- it's the largest on the Atlantic coast. Warning signs are posted, so you're not likely to stumble onto a nude volleyball game accidentally. The only downside to Sandy Hook is its popularity. Among the northernmost bits of the Jersey Shore, the beach can get packed on weekends with an amazing cross-section of sun worshippers.