Carolyn Always Earley

Long weekend in Bethany Beach, Delaware, visiting family – July 2026

I flew to Philadelphia for work and was able to add on a weekend to visit with family. My aunt has a vacation home in a small town called Bethany Beach (it’s only a mile long), which is about 30 minutes south of the more popular Rehoboth Beach. I understand why she fell in love with this place because it is quaint, relaxing and beautiful.

Since the town is so small, most things are walkable and my aunt chose the best location, in my opinion, where you aren’t beachfront (which is way more expensive) but you can walk to the beach. You can also walk to the nearby cluster of stores and restaurants on Garfield Parkway, which has a great Italian market (DiFebo’s Market) and related restaurants, coffee shop (Clove and Cedar Coffeebar) and a diner (which I haven’t tried, but my aunt says is delicious). Or you can walk over to the nearby Nature Center, which is beautiful and shaded.

The first evening I visited, after having dinner at home, we decided to walk down to the boardwalk and get “ice cream” at Kohr Brothers Frozen Custard. Theirs is soft serve (my favorite) and they had a super long line, despite the fact that there are several other similar shops within walking distance, so you know it’s good. My other aunt really wanted the coffee and caramel swirl, which sounded amazing, but the coffee flavor was down so I just got caramel and vanilla. It was still so good!

The next day, we decided to relax on the beach, so we grabbed all our beach things and headed over. It was 75 degrees and sunny, which was beautiful weather for relaxing and reading a book under the umbrella. We walked along the water for a bit also. (Some people were swimming, but I felt the water was way too cold for that.) With small towns like this, the “regulars” all seem to know each other and so my aunt bumped into several people she knew while we were there. Fun fact: only about 900 people live in Bethany Beach full-time, but they get about 15,000 visitors in the summer.

For dinner, we had wanted to go to Patsy’s Restaurant (Cajun seafood restaurant), a favorite of my aunt’s, but they didn’t have any available reservations. We decided to eat at 14 Global instead and it was a great choice! They mostly have tapas, and some entreés if you’re so inclined, but my two aunts, my mom and I picked 5 different share plates to try. We ordered the crispy cauliflower (I didn’t eat that one), wild boar sliders with salt and vinegar fries, beef carpaccio, street corn gnocchi and crab dip fondue. They were all delicious, but I think my favorites were the beef carpaccio and the wild boar sliders. We also got the Shacksberry Blackberry Lime cider, which was perfect and refreshing while sitting outside on their patio in the shade.