The boardwalk runs from Surf Road at the north end down past 23rd Street at the south, spanning the heart of the island. The early-morning hours belong to bicycles and surreys - those wonderful four-wheeled pedal contraptions with fringed canopies that you rent by the hour and pilot, badly, with your entire family aboard. Bikes and surreys are permitted on the boardwalk from 5 a.m. to noon. After noon, the boardwalk is for walking, eating, riding the rides, and shopping. Mack and Manco's pizza, one of the iconic boardwalk businesses, has been making New York-style slices in front of the customer since the 1950s. Brown's makes donuts that have inspired arguably the longest morning lines on the Jersey Shore. The Music Pier at 9th Street hosts concerts through the summer. The boardwalk closes at 11 p.m. and is silent by midnight.

Ocean City's beach runs from Corson's Inlet at the south to Great Egg Harbor Inlet at the north - roughly eight miles of guarded sand, all of it requiring beach tags during the season. Most house rentals provide the tags. The southern end of the beach borders Corson's Inlet State Park, one of the last truly undeveloped stretches of New Jersey coast, established in 1969 specifically to prevent development. The sand at the inlet sometimes hosts piping plover and black skimmer nesting colonies, which the lifeguards rope off and protect during breeding season. North of Corson's, the developed boardwalk strip takes over, with its food stands and shops. North of that, the beach grows quieter again, and by the time you reach the 59th Street access points the crowds have thinned significantly. The local lore is that the true locals stay above 50th Street.

There is something particular about Ocean City's amusement style. The amusement parks - Castaway Cove, Gillian's Wonderland, Playland's Castaway Cove - belong to a particular era of American boardwalk culture that has largely disappeared elsewhere. The rides are family-scale, not extreme. The Ferris wheels are tall enough to see Atlantic City lights but not so tall as to terrify anyone. There are mini-golf courses everywhere. The Congo Falls course has three layouts, including one underground, which makes it the rainy-day standby for an entire generation of South Jersey families. There is a Music Pier and a Surf Mall and Castaway Cove and a Doo-Dah Parade in April honoring basset hounds. The whole place runs on the assumption that a vacation should mostly be lighthearted and slightly strange.

The slogan dates to the early twentieth century. It was earned, not granted. Ocean City's particular combination - dry-town policies, family-focused programming, eight miles of guarded beach, and a boardwalk culture that genuinely targets children and parents rather than the adult party market - made it the alternative to Atlantic City for an entire region of the East Coast. Atlantic City, twenty minutes north, had the casinos, the spectacle, the dangerous edges. Ocean City had the donuts and the surreys. The contrast still defines them both. Ocean City's year-round population sits around 11,000. In summer it swells past 100,000. The Miss New Jersey pageant takes place on the boardwalk every June. The Hospitality Night in December kicks off the holiday shopping season. Even off-season, the boardwalk hosts car shows and seafood festivals and runs that fill the town.

Most visitors focus on the ocean side, but Ocean City's back-bay is where some of the best experiences hide. Bay Avenue runs the length of the island on the western side, and it is the corridor for jet ski and kayak rentals, charter fishing boats, parasailing, and speedboat tours. The Bayside Center, a 1910 home on 1.9 acres facing Peck Bay, opens daily through the summer with a small lifesaving museum, classic ship models, a butterfly garden, and a pavilion where families picnic at sunset. Corson's Inlet to the south and the open waters of Great Egg Harbor to the north feed into the bay. The same Atlantic Flyway that brings birds through Cape May to the south also brings them through here. Howard Stainton Wildlife Refuge and Cape May Coastal Wetlands Wildlife Area protect significant chunks of the bayside habitat.