a day trip from New York City

[Logiola]

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice here.

I am a person living in dead central Canada as far away from the ocean as one can be. We are going to be taking our yearly trip to new york city soon and would like to do something a bit differnt with a bit of our time.

We are thinking of renting a car, and doing a day trip along the NJ shore or even the hamptons.

I would love any suggestions of what might be a good place to visit, where to eat, maybe even stay a night.

I know nothing about the Jersey shore or hampton areas, and want to keep the drive under 3 hours each way. From what i see on google earth, it looks like it could be an interesting drive.

i would love to go to a good sea food restaurant, something quaint with lots of character.

any suggestions would be lovely.

Thanks,
Logiola

[iamahaingttta]

1. Montauk!

It's at the very tip of long island, and you can even take the train.
It's lovely out there, and there's some good eats.

The Jersey Shore is for the most part pretty cheesy. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Of course, driving to the Hamptons is great, but I personally don't like the crowd.
Montauk is a bit more rustic.

Enjoy!

[Logiola]

2. interesting

Seems like a quaint little place.. Taking the train would be pretty cool, i could see the highway out that way being pretty nuts with all the well to be driving fancy cars, speeding in a frenzy..

how long of a drive is it? will have to look into the train.

Thanks,
Logiola

[iamahaingttta]

3. The drive out to Long Island...

...whether you're going to Montauk or the Hamptons can get pretty nuts, depending on the time of the week. Same with the Jersey Shore. From midtown, it's a 2-3 hour drive to any of those places, when there's no traffic. Friday nights, Saturday mornings can take twice as long. Same coming back on Sunday. If you drive out on Wednesday morning, for instance, there's not much traffic.

If you take the train, you get to look around more, the view is better, and you can start getting intoxicated earlier!

Of course, if you're not set on going to the beach, the Hudson Valley/Catskills area is also beutiful. But you've probably seen plenty of mountains already!

Enjoy...

[Logiola]

4. i like the way you think

Yeah, i could care less about the beach, i just wanna go to a good old fishing town with some charm. Maybe my idea of the area is to fairy tale now.. As for Mountains, i live in the praires where the closest ski hill is actually a ditch from a man made river to prevent flooding. I adore the mountains and we usually go out west to British Columbia to camp for a week to get the purdy views, so the Catskills might actually be a fun little trip as well. We are in the nyc area for ten days, so maybe we could even take two day trips, but there is so much to see in the nyc area.

My wife keeps mentioning Fire Island, will have to look it up, never heard of it

[Sanity Claws]

5. Fire Island

is on the south shore of Long Island.
I just moved back to NYC after living on the west coast for 20 years. My suggestion is to go to the NY Times on line and look up travel articles they've written on Long Island for the past couple of years. The articles usually mention how to get to a particular site and what's there to see.
I also prefer Long Island to the Jersey shore. Montauk is the very eastern tip of Long Island and may be a bit far to go, IMHO, unless you planned to stay there over night.
Something to keep in mind about Long Island -- the north shore and south shore beaches are quite different. The north shore beaches have mild waves because Connecticut across Long Island Sound is relatively close. Well-known beaches along the north shore include the Hamptons. The south shore beaches, like Fire Island and Jones Beach, have big wild waves, as you would expect from an ocean.
When do you plan to be in the NYC area, eh?

[Logiola]

6. we will be in nyc

from July 9 to 20th

will check out ny times, i would really like to find a good, cheap, more then you can eat sea food place.. lobster, shrimp.. anything fresh.. we get a lot of good fresh water fish here, but the sea food is a little lack luster unless you want to pay a darn good penny.


also, we plan to check out the meadowlands state fair while we are there, or is this a waste of time? I love Coney Island, and it will be the last year to see it as it is and was.. kind of sad.

we have been to nyc numerous times and have done all the tourist things, so this trip we are trying to make it a bit more off the beaten path. Last trip we explored more of Brooklyn and it was a lot of fun.

logiola

[Sanity Claws]

7. Long Island

Newsday is a newspaper that caters to Long Island. Its online version has something on exploring Long Island. It will give you restaurant reviews, list of festivals, list of beaches, etc.
I don't know anything about the Meadowlands State Fair so can't help you there.

[speedoo]

8. Montauk is an excellent suggestion.

Definitely a fishing town. And I would highly recommend taking the train. Traffic on Long Island is a potential vacation-killer. Seriously. And gasoline in NY is ridiculously expensive.

Maybe rent some bikes when you get there.

As for good cheap eats, I can't make a specific recommendation, but I'm sure Montauk has plenty.

From Montauk, you could also take a ferry out to Block Island, a real treat.

[Book Lover]

9. I also recommend the train out to the East End

Check out Shelter Island - it used to be the anti-Hamptons, then become the other Hamptons, and is now recovering from all the attention :-)