New Jersey is the small, densely populated state across the Hudson from New York City — perpetually overshadowed by the Manhattan skyline visible from much of its northern half, and reflexively butt of New York jokes about turnpikes, refineries and accent. The clichés cover a state that is, in fact, surprisingly varied: the densest population in the country sharing a small landmass with farmland (the "Garden State" nickname is earned), 130 miles of Atlantic beaches (the "Jersey Shore"), the Pine Barrens (a million-acre coastal pine forest), and a slice of the Appalachian Trail in the northwest.
The northeast is suburban Manhattan — Hoboken, Newark, Jersey City — with PATH trains running into the city in minutes. Newark Liberty Airport is one of the main international gateways to the New York region. Princeton, in the centre of the state, is the eponymous Ivy League college town with an attractive walkable downtown.
The shore is what New Jerseyans actually celebrate. Cape May at the southern tip is a Victorian seaside town of preserved gingerbread houses; Wildwood is the unironic boardwalk-and-fudge classic; Long Beach Island is the family beach perennial; Asbury Park has reinvented itself as a hip music-and-bar town with Bruce Springsteen credentials. Atlantic City offers casinos and a famous boardwalk, though it has steadily lost ground to the casinos in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Inland are quieter pleasures. The Delaware Water Gap in the northwest is a dramatic river canyon with hiking and rafting. The Pine Barrens in the south is a vast sandy pine forest with a folkloric reputation (the Jersey Devil) and surprisingly few people. Thomas Edison's laboratory in West Orange is preserved as a National Historical Park; the workshop where the lightbulb, phonograph and motion picture were perfected is largely intact.
