South Bethany Beach
South Bethany, DE
South Bethany is the most residential of Delaware's Quiet Resorts, a beach town with no boardwalk, no shops, and nothing built along the sand except the houses behind the dune line. Sixteen foot dunes went up after a string of storms in the 2000s, and locals will tell you the town still feels a little more private because of it.
The quiet, purely residential character is exactly what locals want out of it, but that same lack of any commercial strip means there's nowhere to grab lunch without driving to Bethany or Fenwick.
How we score beachesBring cash or the ParkMobile app for the metered spots on the side streets closest to the water. They're the ones that fill up first once summer permit season starts in mid May.
Metered and permit parking runs along the streets closest to the beach from May 15 through September 15. Outside that window, parking is open and free.
Beach access runs through marked street end walkovers, most a short, flat boardwalk style ramp over the dune.
Dogs are banned from the beach entirely from May 15 through October 15, and must be leashed on public property the rest of the year.
Water reaches the mid to upper 70s by August, inside the same June through November hurricane season as the rest of the Delaware coast. Fall brings back free parking well before the water actually turns too cold to swim.
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