New Jersey USA
Destination Guide & Hotel Reservations
The long, skinny state of NEW JERSEY has been at the heart of US history since the Revolution
, when a battle was fought at Princeton , and George Washington spent two bleak
winters at Morristown . As the Civil War came, the state's commitment to an
industrial future ensured that, despite its border location along the Mason-Dixon line, it
fought with the Union.
That commitment to industry has doomed New Jersey in modern times. Most travelers only
see "the Garden State" (so called for the rich market garden territory at the
state's heart) from the stupendously ugly New Jersey Turnpike toll road which, heavy with
truck traffic, cuts through a landscape of gray smokestacks and industrial estates. Even
the songs of Bruce Springsteen , Asbury Park's golden boy, paint his home state as
a gritty urban wasteland of empty lots, gray highways, lost dreams and blue-collar
tragedy. The majority of the refineries and factories hug only a mere fifteen-mile-wide
swath along the turnpike, but bleak cities like Newark , home to the major airport,
and Trenton , the capital, do little to improve the look of the place and the state
suffers from a major image problem.
But there is more to New Jersey than factories and pollution. Alongside its
revolutionary history, Thomas Paine and Walt Whitman both wrote nostalgically of the happy
years they spent there; while the northwest corner near the Delaware Water Gap
is traced with picturesque lakes, streams and woodlands. Best of all, the Atlantic
shore offers many bustling resorts, from the tattered glitz of Atlantic City to the
glorious kitsch of Wildwoods and the old-world charm of Cape May.
Reserve a Hotel Room in New Jersey USA
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