Are you looking to jazz up your Bethany Beach (or any Delaware or Maryland beach) vacation? Here are some great non-beach activities in Bethany Beach and close by!
My husband’s family goes as a big extended family to Bethany Beach for a week every summer. They like to spend as much time on the beach as possible when they’re there, which is great for them. But when we join them (about every three years), I like to mix it up.
You see, a beach vacation is never my go-to vacation. I grew up 10 minutes from the beach, so we liked to pop over for a few hours at a time. The prospect of a whole week sitting on the beach for full days is daunting considering my history with the beach. Most importantly, though, my eczema really makes a weeklong beach vacation hard. It literally hurts me to spend too much time at the beach. My skin just can’t handle it.
So, to get in some family beach time but also give my skin a bit of a break from the constant beating of the sand and the sweat and the saltwater, we decided to break away from the group a few times on our recent Bethany Beach vacation. If you are interested in non-beach activities in Bethany Beach, here is what we did to mix it up this summer.
Non-Beach Activities in Bethany Beach
Fenwick Island Lighthouse
On our first full day in Bethany Beach, we started our day at the Fenwick Island Lighthouse. If you’re looking for a quick, close activity, add this to your list of non-beach activities in Bethany Beach!
Location
The Fenwick Island Lighthouse is located just off Coastal Highway right on the Delaware-Maryland border on Fenwick Island. It’s easy to get to from the Delaware beaches (Bethany, Dewey, Rehoboth) and from Ocean City, Maryland.
When to go
The Fenwick Island Lighthouse is open to the public several mornings a week, all year long. We visited in July, and the lighthouse was open for viewing Thursday-Monday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Please check the visiting hours before your trip so you can be sure to plan a stop when the lighthouse is open.
What to do
Unfortunately, the state of Delaware does not allow visitors to climb the lighthouse. You can, however, enter the base of the lighthouse and the keeper’s house next door, which has been made into a bit of a museum. My kids were thrilled touring the base of the lighthouse, so don’t let these restrictions deter you!
The volunteers who staff the keeper’s house are a wealth of information, so please ask them questions. We learned about the keepers, the building of the lighthouse, and the state’s efforts to repurchase the lighthouse’s out buildings. Fascinating!
Although the lighthouse doesn’t have a full-on gift shop, they do have a few souvenirs for sale. Think magnets, postcards, and Christmas ornaments. We decided to buy a postcard and a Christmas ornament to help support the lighthouse, as visiting the lighthouse and the keeper’s house are free of charge.
Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats
Although I’m definitely on board with making easy vacation meals when I’m at the beach, it’s not a vacation unless I have at least one dinner out. Because my husband and I both love to try new beer wherever we go, we settled on Dogfish Head Brewing & Eats as our dinner out. We were very happy with our choice and can definitely recommend Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats if you’re looking for a meal to add to your list of non-beach activities in Bethany Beach.
Logistics
My research told me that Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats is a popular place, especially on weekend evenings at the normal dinner hour. We’re talking like hour plus waits. If you have young kids, you know that waiting for a table can be agony. To avoid a long wait, we chose to go for an early dinner on a Monday evening. We arrived at about 5:00 p.m. and were seated immediately.
As far as parking goes, Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats doesn’t have its own dedicated parking lot. That’s not a problem, though, because there is plenty of metered street parking nearby. We had zero issues finding a space close to the restaurant.
Food & Drink
Of course, what you order for food & drink is entirely up to your personal preference. We enjoyed everything we had, so I wanted to pass along our choices in case they are helpful.
Drink-wise, my husband and I each chose to build a flight of beer. We were able to choose four selections each. My favorites were the Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale and the Liquid Truth Serum IPA. Lucky for me, both were available to pick up in 6-packs to take home!
As far as food goes, we started off with the pretzel bites. I’m obsessed with soft pretzels, and I have passed this trait to my 5-year-old son. He requested that we get pretzel bites to start and then proceeded to eat half of them. My husband also ordered the crab and corn chowder to start. There was some miscommunication, though, and it never arrived. When the waitstaff realized this, they immediately brought it to him and took it off our bill. Great service!
For our entrees, my son got a giant grilled cheese with fries, my daughter got a cheese pizza, my husband got a salmon BLT, and I got a cheddar brie grilled cheese. Everyone had full, happy bellies!
Mini Golf
When I asked my family members what their #1 priorities were for our week at Bethany Beach, my 3-year-old daughter chose mini golf. This was curious to me, but I honored her request, and we made it happen.
Nick’s Mini Golf has several locations along the Maryland-Delaware shore, and all of them make for fun non-beach activities in Bethany Beach. We went as a family of four to Rehoboth Beach Jurassic Golf. The holes are woven between animatronic dinosaurs. This started out really fun, but proved to be too much for my 3-year-old when we got to a dinosaur that flapped its neck frill and reared up on its hind legs. She was terrified! If you chose the Jurassic Golf location, just prepare your kids for this particular guy.
If you want to stay in Bethany Beach for mini golf, Nick’s has an outpost there too. My husband and my kids went one morning while I was topping up our groceries. These dinosaurs seemed to be less terrifying, if you think this might cause a problem with your kids.
Assateague Island National Seashore
I’ve been to Bethany Beach many times with my husband’s family, but I’d bever ventured out of Bethany Beach itself. I had always heard about the wild ponies on Assateague Island, and when I realized it was less than an hour away from where we were staying, we just had to go!
What to do
Now, putting Assateague Island National Seashore on a list of non-beach activities in Bethany Beach isn’t really fair. You can absolutely go to the beach on Assateague Island. Our main goal in visiting the island was to see the ponies, though, so I’m calling it a non-beach activity based on my experience.
When we arrived, we stopped at the Assateague Island National Seashore Visitor’s Center before we crossed the bridge to the island. We chatted with a ranger about what he thought would be best for our family, grabbed some Junior Ranger books for the kids, and got our pass straightened out. My husband is a veteran, so we were able to use his lifetime veteran pass. If you don’t have an existing National Parks pass, you will need to pay $25 per car to access the land operated by the National Park Service.
After we drove on the island, the ponies were immediately hanging out right by the road. It was so cool to see them just munching on grass as you drove by! Although we saw quite a few ponies from the car, we took two of the hikes on the island in the hopes of seeing more of them – the Marsh trail and the Forest Trail. It was excessively hot the day of our visit, so we didn’t see any ponies on the trails. We also didn’t stick around for too long because we were all roasting (according to my 5-year-old).
Tips
If you’re visiting Assateague Island National Seashore in the summer, it is very hot and very buggy. Make sure you have sunscreen and big spray with you and use both liberally!
You’ll also want to arrive early. The Visitor’s Center opened at 9:00 a.m. and we were there shortly thereafter. This arrival time got us lots of one-on-one time with the ranger and no line at the booths to drive into the park. When we left a few hours later, the Visitor’s Center was packed and the lines to get in the park were long.
Ice cream
What’s a beach trip without ice cream? Although maybe not the most exciting thing to do, getting ice cream was one of our favorite non-beach activities in Bethany Beach!
Moo Cow Cone
One night after dinner, we decided to go get ice cream as an extended family unit. We headed to Moo Cow Cone, which is a trailer in a parking lot at the corner of Coastal Highway and Jefferson Bridge Road. It’s easy to miss, but it’s truly a destination to seek out if you like ice cream! I got the cappuccino crunch flavor, and it was out of this world! They also have a big game of Connect Four set up in the parking lot, which was a huge hit with the kids.
Baroos
On our last night in Bethany Beach, we wanted ice cream again, so we all headed out for another round. This time, we went to Baroos in the Sea Colony Marketplace. If you like variety, this is the place for you! They had so many flavor options available, it was almost overwhelming. I panicked when it was my turn to order and got the Jolted Cow. Can you tell I like coffee ice cream? It was tasty, but I must say the cappuccino crunch from Moo Cow Cone beat it. I did try my son’s Moose Tracks and that was a solid choice for sure.
Other posts
Looking for other travel-related posts? I’m starting to write more about our travels on the blog, so I have a few more for you:
So, what non-beach activities do you do at the beach? Let us know in the comments or over on Instagram @sarainseason.