I have lived in Northern New Jersey for most of my life. That was until I headed south to Florida.
If you are going to visit the New York/New Jersey area, there is an awful lot to do here. Of course New York has broadway and Times square, but you have to pay an awful lot at the hotels there.
If you stay in New Jersey, the hotels are much more cheaper and NY would only be about 20 minutes away after you pay the tolls on either the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel.
In Northern New Jersey, you can take a flight right into Newark Airport, and you will not be no more than 30 minutes away from any of the sites/towns I will list below.
In Northern NJ, you have Secaucus, which has quite a few trendy hotels along with a few malls. Next to Secaucus, you have East Rutherford and Rutherford. East Rutherford is home to Giants Stadium where the NY Giants and the NY Jets play thier football games. Yes I know the stadium is in NJ and the teams are called NY...Don’t ask because you will never get a straight answer from anyone. Across from the stadium you have the Continental Airlines Arena. You can catch a basketball game or even a hockey game here.
Up a little ways from Rutherford, you have Paramus. Here is a town that has managed to fit 7 malls into one town. The most popular one is the Garden State Plaza. When they renovated this mall, it was the 6 th largest mall in all of the US of A. You can spend a whole day at this mall, and then head across the parking lot for a movie at the movie theatre.
Paramus also offers the county park which has a zoo. You can spend a day at this park alone just hanging out with the kids at the playground. Up the street from the zoo is the NJ Children’s musuem. Another great hands on site for kids to play.
Yes New Jersey has it’s smog that it is so popular for, but as you can see, New Jersey does offer quite a bit for its visitors. And it’s alot cheaper to stay in New Jersey than it is to stay in New York.