"I grew up with parents trying to figure out the back way to avoid part of the Garden State Parkway by going through, parallel, and over it," says Kathryn Quigley, 44. Her family drove from Northeast Philadelphia to Stone Harbor along a route that included "the TAC" (i.e. the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge), a "restaurant with a triangle-shaped roof, and the bathrooms were out back."
Now Quigley lives in Deptford, but she still takes the backroads, albeit of the Route 55 to Route 47 variety, with a few twists and turns.
"Why would I go down Atlantic City Expressway?" Quigley asked. "If I go to Atlantic City I do. From Deptford, it makes no sense to go that way," she said.
Quigley starts by heading onto Route 55 south until it turns into Route 47. From there, she has two options: continue taking Route 47 or head on to Route 347, which leads back into Route 47. Quigley said that taking the Route 347 leg means less traffic. She then turns left onto Country Highway 657, which goes behind the Cape May County Zoo and eventually turns into Stone Harbor Boulevard, the main thoroughfare into Stone Harbor.
Barbara Hagin lives in San Francisco, but she grew up in New Jersey and visits her father, who lives in Wildwood Crest, every year. She flies into Philadelphia International Airport.
"I usually take the main roads, but from time to time I veer off the beaten path and take the smaller highways," she says.
Two of her backroads are common and direct: Once she's over the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey, she takes the Black Horse Pike or White Horse Pike straight down to Atlantic City, avoiding the Atlantic City Expressway tolls, but "those aren't very scenic, frankly," she said.
