Jones Beach,Long Island

With summer around we decided to head to a beach to relax on a weekend. Living in NYC was just another excise for us to run away from the hustle and bustle of the city. NYC does not boast of beaches and just has a couple of them,viz,Coney island beach and rockaway. But, we decided to go away from the city to Long Island. Jones beach was our destination. We started as early as we could and that was 8AM,went to the car rental location and picked up our car for the day. We started our drive toward Long Island. It was supposed to be a 1 hour drive but the traffic inside NYC made the drive a little longer. As we approached Jones beach,we could see many different fields of Jones beach. the first field(area open to public) was 1 and then it also had 2,3,4. As we drive about another one mile,field 6 was also there. On the day that we travelled,field 1 and 3 were closed;field 6 was full. Thant left us with field 2 or 4. We chose 2. No specific reasons for choosing field 2.

The good news is this beach also has public transport. Take the LIRR to arive at Freeport station. From here, take the bus N62 to arrive at the beach.

There is no entrance fee to any of the fields at Jones beach. However, a vehicle parking fee of $10 is charged per vehicle.The ticket for this can be purchased at the West bath house. This is nothing but a building that houses the ticketing committee and also has the swimming pools. I purchased the entry fee and we headed toward field 2. Here, we were directed toward the parking space. After parking,we collected our belongings and started to walk toward the beach. I could already see the silvery sands and blue waters and my excitement level was already high.

As we enter the beach, there were comfort stations that had restrooms and changing rooms for men and women separately. Also, there was the beach umbrella rental spot there. We opted to rent one as it was a very hot day and we did not carry our one either.The charge is a $10 per umbrella rental and a $10 deposit charge. This deposit charge gets released if we come back with the umbrella and the receipt that was given while renting it. Umbrella rentals are only upto 5:30 PM everyday.

We walked toward the beach and found a place for us to settle down. Most of the people present were busy with sun-tanning themselves,readiing a book,playing a beach sport or just relaxing. Another piece of information is that, there are no stalls or stores that sell food or drink. Luckily, we had packed a few sandwiches and had taken water and drinks.Everyone on the beach had their own eatables and drinks. I only saw the ice cream vendor and that was just once. After some time of relaxing around, we too decided to catch up on reading;we had packed a few books for ourselves. It was a very relaxing time to read and enjoy the shore at the same time. In an hour ,we were hungry again and thought of gobbling the sandwiches. As it was already 1PM and lunch was just over too,need I say more? Yes, I just dozed off. I woke up in a few minutes and it was time for us to leave as we planned on visiting some other places around like oyster bay,city of long beach etc.

I'm looking forward to our next trip and I leave you with the following quick tips:

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  You can drive down or choose to take the public transport to Jones beach
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  Carry your own food and drinks
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  taking along your beach umbrella and seats would be a good idea