Once a year, every lighthouse site on the New Jersey coast opens on the same weekend and challenges you to visit them all. It is called the Lighthouse Challenge of New Jersey, it is always the third full weekend in October, and every stop is on this map.
This year: Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18, 2026
- Hours: every site is open 8 am to 6 pm both days.
- Night climbs: Saturday only, 6 to 8 pm, at Navesink Twin Lights, Tucker's Island Light (Tuckerton Seaport) and Tinicum Rear Range Light. Arrive by 7:30 if you want to climb.
- Cost: $10 to register, at whichever site you start. No pre-registration.
- The souvenir: a book of stories from the American Revolution along the New Jersey coast, with a sticker to collect at each stop. This year honors the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, the only New Jersey lighthouse standing during the Revolution.
- Climbing is optional. Some lighthouses charge to climb; kids 11 and under climb free with an adult.
Read on the organizer's site, lighthousechallengenj.com, on October 12, 2026. Always check it before you go.
How it works
There are 16 sites: 11 lighthouse sites, 4 lifesaving stations and 1 museum, from Sandy Hook down the Atlantic coast to Cape May, then up the Delaware Bay and River to Paulsboro. It is only 15 stops, because East Point and the Delaware Bay Lights share one. Start anywhere, go in any order, and pick up a sticker at each stop. Finish them all and tell the volunteers at your last stop: finishers get a completion award and a chance at a prize basket.
Want to see how far apart they really are? Open the map and plan your route.
The 16 sites, north to south
Sandy Hook and the Highlands
- Sandy Hook Lighthouse - first lit in 1764, the oldest standing and oldest operating lighthouse in the United States.
- Spermaceti Cove Life Saving Station - also on Sandy Hook, Hartshorne Drive between Lots D and E.
- Navesink Twin Lights - 200 feet above sea level in Highlands. The current lighthouse dates to 1862.
Monmouth and Ocean shore
- Sea Girt Lighthouse - Ocean Avenue and Beacon Boulevard, Sea Girt.
- Squan Beach Lifesaving Station - Ocean and 2nd Avenue, Manasquan.
Long Beach Island and Tuckerton
- Barnegat Lighthouse - relit on January 1, 2009, 150 years to the day after it was first lit.
- Barnegat Light Museum - the town's old one-room schoolhouse, home of the lighthouse's original first-order Fresnel lens.
- Tucker's Island Light - at Tuckerton Seaport.
Atlantic City to Cape May
- Absecon Lighthouse - New Jersey's tallest lighthouse, 228 steps to the original Fresnel lens.
- U.S. Life Saving Station 30 - 801 Fourth Street, Ocean City.
- Tatham Lifesaving Station - 117th Street and Second Avenue, Stone Harbor.
- Cape May Lighthouse - in Cape May Point State Park.
Delaware Bay and River
- East Point Lighthouse and the Delaware Bay Lights - one stop, two sites. East Point (1849) is the last lighthouse left on the Jersey side of the bay; the Delaware Bay Lights are eight lighthouses out in the bay, shown as a picture tour. For 2026 the organizer lists this stop at Leechester Hall, 548 Main Street, Leesburg, so check the address before you drive.
- Finns Point Rear Range Light - a 115-foot iron tower from 1877 in Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Pennsville.
- Tinicum Rear Range Light - Paulsboro, the far end of the route.
Plan your weekend
Our friends at Get Outside NJ wrote up every stop with route ideas for 2026, and Point Pleasant Family Adventures has a family plan for the northern stops. Doing it with kids? The organizer's Family Fun page has a coloring page for every site.
NJ Lighthouse Map is a fan site. It is not associated with the Lighthouse Challenge of New Jersey, any lighthouse, park or group, or the state.