I went to the Jersey Shore to get away for a couple days, but found that the suburbs had followed me (albeit with fewer inhabitants due to the season). At least that's how Long Beach Island felt to me. Having been to Assateague Island, a similar barrier island, a few days earlier, I saw a world of difference in the two places.

Assateague is comprised of two parks--a Maryland state park, and the Assateague Island National Seashore--and no permanent residents except for the wildlife. Long Beach Island is comprised mostly of roads, houses and other signs of human consumption, as though the suburbs of a bigger city had been transplanted there and then beachified. Some (relatively small) areas are kept natural, as a city park might be, but I imagine even those areas suffer from an overabundance of humans in the summer. I'll take the natural beauty of Assateague any day--including the mosquitoes and biting green flies.