Coastal Highway After Dark
The island end to end once the sun is off it — nine miles of Coastal Highway from the north end's ball-field lights down to the Inlet, and out over the drawbridge. A tour you drive.
8 stops · 1 hr 30 min drive · 9.2 miles
- 🚗 By car
- After hours
- 🌙 Unlocks after dark
- 🪙 50 Sand Dollars on completion
Two things this route asks of you. The bayside stops — Northside Park, Sunset Park, the 60th and 49th Street lots — back onto streets people live on: headlights down, doors shut quietly, and no idling under someone's bedroom window. And two of these stops are bars. Whoever is driving is not drinking; the guide is not subtle about this one.
200 125th St, bayside. Park in the lot and give yourself ten minutes on the pier before you get back in the car.
Northside Park
Start at the top of the island while there's still light in the sky. Northside Park is OC's biggest — 58 bayside acres at 125th Street — and the lighted ball fields are usually the first thing up here to switch on. Walk out on one of the lagoon piers first: they face west, which on a barrier island that spends all day looking east is the whole point.
South on Coastal Hwy to 123rd St — about two minutes.
Dumser's Dairyland (123rd St Drive-In)
Two blocks south, the northernmost Dumser's drive-in, scooping the family's own ice cream since 1939 and open year-round. Get the cone now rather than later: everything else on this route gets progressively less compatible with holding one.
Full details, hours & sources for Dumser's Dairyland (123rd St Drive-In) →
Four miles south — the long leg of this route. 201 60th St, bayside.
Fager's Island
Time the drive so you're standing here when the sun goes. Every night Fager's plays the 1812 Overture as it drops, timed so the finale lands exactly as the last of it disappears behind the bay. It is the most reliable piece of theatre in Ocean City, it costs nothing if you only order a drink, and the bar keeps going until 2am if you'd rather stay than continue.
117 49th St, bayside.
Seacrets (Jamaica USA)
Eleven blocks south and a different century: a Jamaican-themed compound that has been growing on the 49th Street bayside since 1988 — restaurant, beach bar, distillery, live music every single night. It regularly ranks among the highest-grossing bars in America, which is a fact about July Saturdays as much as it is about the bar. After nine it goes 21-plus, so this is the stop that decides whether tonight's tour is an all-ages one.
Three and a half miles south to downtown. The Pier, at Wicomico St — park inland and walk the last block.
Jolly Roger at the Pier
Down to where the boards run out. The Ferris wheel out over the water is the most photographed object in this town, and riding it after dark is the postcard actually happening to you — the whole lit length of the Boardwalk on one side, the black Atlantic on the other. It's a seasonal park, so confirm it's spinning before you promise anyone anything.
S Division St, bayside — a few blocks west of the pier.
Sunset Park
A small bayside park at S Division with a rail, some benches, and an uninterrupted view west over the harbor to the Route 50 bridge. It is named for a show that has already finished by the time this tour reaches it, and it is better for that: the boats are lit, the bridge is lit, and the crowd that came for the sunset has gone home. Thursday evenings in summer the Party Nights concerts take the place over and it stops being quiet at all.
Ocean City Inlet & Jetty
The southern edge, and the darkest place on the island. A hurricane cut this channel in a single night in 1933; the Army Corps looked at the new gap, decided it was worth keeping, and jettied both sides. Assateague sits black on the horizon with no lights on it at all — which, if you have just spent nine miles driving past neon, is the most surprising view in Worcester County.
Full details, hours & sources for Ocean City Inlet & Jetty →
Quiz yourself: What made the Inlet you're standing on?
- The Army Corps dredged it in 1929
- A hurricane cut it in one night in 1933
- It was dug for the 1875 hotel
- It has always been there
Answer: A hurricane cut it in one night in 1933
The August 1933 hurricane cut the channel overnight; the Army Corps of Engineers made it permanent with the jetties afterwards.
US Route 50 west, out of downtown. This one you take at speed — there is nowhere to stop on a drawbridge.
Route 50 Drawbridge (Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge)
Finish the way every OC trip starts, in reverse. The 1942 drawbridge — officially the Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge, officially to nobody — still opens for boat traffic, so a 'bridge up' at midnight is possible and is nothing to be annoyed about. Crest it, look in the mirror, and the whole nine miles you just drove is one lit strip on the water.
Full details, hours & sources for Route 50 Drawbridge (Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge) →