Sunset at Third Ave. Jetty/Jack Fichter

CAPE MAY — Forbes Traveler.com has declared this historic seaside city one of the 20 prettiest towns in America.

“From Bisbee to Cape May, they’ve each got something special that should put them on the savvy traveler’s radar,” said the Forbes Traveler story.

A team of five experts made the choice: Bob Krist, photographer and host of PBS's Restoration Stories, Sarah Tuff Dunn, travel writer and co-author of 101 Best Outdoor Towns, Greg Melville, travel writer, co-author of 101 Best Outdoor Towns, Danno Glanz, urban designer with Berkeley, Calif.-based architecture and design firm Calthorpe Associates and Greg Ward, travel writer and co-author, The Rough Guide to the USA.

“Identifying America’s prettiest towns is by definition a subjective undertaking—prettiness, to adapt an old saying, is in the eye of the beholder, noted the Forbes Traveler story.

Krist said many of the prettiest towns were the kind of places that don’t exist much anymore.

“You can look down a street in Cape May and see seven or eight beautiful Victorians all in a row. It’s an architectural integrity that existed before strip malls and before things got homogenized with aluminum siding,” he said in the Forbes Traveler story.

The prettiest towns in America lean heavily towards the East, and New England.
Other pretty towns include New Hope, Pa., Rockport, Maine, Annapolis, Md., Mendocino, Calif., and Hanover, N.H.

The story can be viewed on their Web site: Forbestraveler.com