NJ’s most remote places — and why they’re worth the drive

Earlier this week I wrote about drawing a line across New Jersey my whole life. Route 70. Everything south of it was my territory. Everything north of it was the undiscovered country.

What started that whole conversation was one place. Walpack.

I have been near Walpack Township twice without knowing it. Once in the late 1990s paddling a canoe down the Delaware River with my family — I floated right past it. Again just a few years ago hiking the Delaware Water Gap in December with my buddy Wayne Cabot. Both times I was close. Both times I didn't know what was sitting just off the river on the Jersey side.

Then I started reading about it and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since. Wayne and I are already planning a trip. And researching Walpack got me wondering about the other most remote places in the most densely populated state in America.

New Jersey has more people per square mile than any state in the country. And yet tucked into its corners — mostly in the northwest, along the Delaware, deep in the Highlands — are places that feel as remote and as quiet as anywhere in the northeast. If you are planning your spring and summer adventures this year, this guide is for you!

SEE ALSO: I've written South Jersey to death — now I'm heading north

Five of New Jersey's most remote and remarkable places

1. Walpack Township — Sussex County

Population: 7.

Seven people. That is the entire recorded population of Walpack Township according to the 2020 United States Census. Fewer people than most families put around a Thanksgiving table. In 2000, the population was 41. By 2010, it was 16. By 2020, it was 7 — and current estimates suggest it may be even lower now.

The story of how Walpack became a ghost town is one of the most extraordinary in New Jersey history. In the 1960s, the federal government began acquiring land in the area to build the Tocks Island Dam on the Delaware River — a massive flood control project that would have created a 37-mile lake. Residents were displaced. Homes were bought out. A community that had existed since the 1700s was essentially emptied.

The dam was never built. Environmental opposition, cost overruns and changing priorities killed the project. The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area was established in 1978. Most of the displaced residents never came back. Seven did.

What remains today is one of the most hauntingly beautiful places in New Jersey — abandoned foundations, empty lots where houses once stood, the Wallpack Center Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, and silence so complete you can feel it. The township covers nearly 25 square miles. Seven people live there.

I need to go. Soon.

Getting there: Take Route 206 north into Sussex County, then follow Route 615 into the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Cell service fades as you go deeper. That is the point.

2. Sandyston Township — Sussex County

Just north of Walpack and sharing its remote character, Sandyston Township sits surrounded by state forests and federal parkland along the New Jersey side of the Delaware. The population hovers around 1,800 — tiny by NJ standards — spread across 40 square miles of wooded, winding terrain.

The Kittatinny Ridge runs through this area, offering serious hiking with serious views. The Appalachian Trail passes through here. Flat Brook — one of the finest wild trout streams in the northeast — flows through the township. If you want remote hiking with cold, clear water nearby, Sandyston delivers without requiring you to leave New Jersey.

Getting there: Route 206 north through Branchville into Sandyston. The Flatbrook-Roy Wildlife Management Area is worth a stop.

3. Frelinghuysen Township — Warren County

Moving slightly south into Warren County, Frelinghuysen has a softer character than the Sussex County wilderness — more rolling farmland, stone walls, historic barns, long views across green hills. The population is around 2,400 people spread across 25 square miles.

Jenny Jump State Forest sits within the township — 4,000 acres of mixed hardwood forest with trails, campsites and some of the darkest night skies in New Jersey. The state forest is one of the best spots for stargazing in the region. If the idea of camping under genuinely dark skies within an hour and a half of most of New Jersey sounds appealing, Jenny Jump is the place.

Getting there: Route 46 west into Warren County, then north on Route 611 toward Hope and Frelinghuysen.

4. Money Island — Cumberland County

Back in South Jersey territory — and a place that fits perfectly into your Delaware Bay explorations — Money Island sits along the bay shore in Cumberland County, surrounded by wetlands, tidal creeks and the kind of flat coastal solitude that feels completely different from any other landscape in the state.

The community is tiny — a small cluster of seasonal and year-round homes at the literal end of the road. The bay views are expansive. The birding is exceptional. Horseshoe crabs come ashore here in spring in numbers that have to be seen to be believed. It is one of the great wildlife spectacles on the East Coast and most New Jersey residents have never heard of it.

Getting there: Route 553 south through Cedarville to Gandy's Beach Road, all the way to the end. You will know you are getting close when the road narrows and the marsh takes over on both sides.

5. Corbin City — Atlantic County

Technically a city — one of the smallest in New Jersey with a population around 500 — Corbin City sits in Atlantic County — just west of the Great Egg Harbor River and its wetlands, north of the Tuckahoe River and surrounded by forests and farms with almost no commercial footprint. It is genuinely quiet in a way that most of Atlantic County is not.

Both rivers and their tributaries are beautiful for kayaking and canoeing — flat water, wooded banks, wildlife around every bend. No crowds. Plenty of crabs. No badge required. Just the river and the trees.

Getting there: Route 50 south from Mays Landing, then west on Corbin City Road.

The list could go on

New Jersey rewards the curious. The state that everyone thinks they know — the Turnpike, the diners, the density — has been hiding these places in plain sight for centuries. This spring and summer, point the car somewhere unfamiliar. Let the roads get narrow. Let the cell service fade.

The most densely populated state in America has more wilderness than most people ever find.