This nine-stop itinerary highlights the rich history and natural beauty of America’s First State.
Only In Delaware

While much is known of the du Pont family’s monopolization of the gunpowder industry and subsequent rise to wealth, less is made of their collective love for flora. For a compelling display of both ostentation and natural beauty, a visit to the Nemours Estate should suffice. 

This 300-acre property—home to not only a 77-room mansion, but also the largest French-style formal gardens on the continent—was originally a gift bestowed upon Alfred I. duPont’s second wife. He hired a prestigious N.Y.C. architecture firm to design the five-story, 47,000 square-foot mansion in the 18th century French style before outfitting it with priceless tapestries, antique furniture, crystal chandeliers, and coffered ceilings. There’s also a music conservatory, library, trophy hall, billiards room, and naturally, a bowling alley.

The mansion is just the beginning. Step outside and you’ll see Russian Gates (once belonging to the Empress of Russia) and English Gates (once used at Wimbledon Manor) opening up onto lush, rolling vistas pockmarked with statues, fountains, and tree-lined allées in every direction. The Maze Garden is framed by centuries-old arborvitae winding to a bronze and gold leaf statue; the paths forking off from the Woodland Trailhead wind past pools and springs among the rugged hillsides; the Oriental Gardens feature a stone arch bridge, Chinese peonies, and Japanese cryptomeria. 

If you have enough stamina to explore the breadth of these superlative grounds, a map will come in handy. And luckily, you can bring your own lunch. 

Reservations are not needed and there is no timed entry. Check ticket prices here.

Encircled by a moat on Delaware's tiny Pea Patch Island, Fort Delaware is a stout little stronghold built to defend Philadelphia from Confederate attack. While the attack never came, park staff dressed in period clothing do fire a cannon for visitors, anyway.

The fort primarily served as a support facility during the Civil War, housing, at its peak, nearly 13,000 Confederate prisoners of war. Costumed interpreters lead tours throughout the fort to reimagine daily life during the 1860s; visitors can help the “blacksmith” hammer out equipment, assist the “laundress”  with daily chores, view artifacts from the island’s past, and hear tales of prisoner escapes. As promised, staff fire the 8-inch Columbiad cannon daily, making up for all the action it never saw during actual war-time. 

For non-military buffs, Pea Patch Island is also home to one of the largest mixed species heronries in the eastern United States. Visitors who hike along the Prison Camp Trail to the Heronry Overlook may be able to spot herons, egrets, ibises, osprey, and even bald eagles. If birds and cannons don’t do it for you, the island is also said to be haunted, with paranormal tours running every fall weekend.

Access to the island is by ferry only; the ticket office and dock are located at 45 Clinton Street in Delaware City. Reserve your tickets here.

This humble abode is one of the oldest houses in Delaware, but also one of the oldest surviving Swedish-American homes in the country. Swedish emigree and farmer Andrew Hendrickson built the house in 1690, which, for chronological reference, is before the invention of the steam engine, before Uranus was recognized as a planet, and before Bach could read music.

It’s also rather well-traveled for being such an old home. While the Hendricksons were part of the New Sweden Colony, which flanked the lower reaches of the Delaware River, this home was originally located by Chester, PA, about 15 miles upstream from the building’s current location in Wilmington. Three generations of Hendricksons lived in the home before it was first sold to tenant farmers, then abandoned, and finally moved to and restored in Wilmington. Today, it’s a National Historic Landmark and part of the Old Swedes Historic Site.

Together with the Holy Trinity Church (c. 1698) and a burial ground with headstones dating back to 1638, the Hendrickson House helps to reanimate the lives of Swedish-Americans settling along the Delaware River in the 17th and 18th centuries. The buildings are full of records, maps, genealogical info, and colonial-era artifacts with which visitors can interact to get a better understanding of Delaware’s multicultural past.

Check here for seasonal hours of operation.

December 7th, 1787 was a wintry night like any other at Dover’s Golden Fleece Tavern. A fire was stoked, drinks were poured, and laughs were surely had. At some point in the night, however, a group of politicians gathered in a backroom to sign some paperwork that would make Delaware the first official state in a nascent country called the United States of America.

The ratification of the U.S. Constitution wasn’t the first political act carried out in the Dover drinking hole, of which only a single wall still stands. Built in 1733, the Golden Fleece was a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment, exchange, and activity long-before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. In fact, when the seat of the Delaware government moved to Dover in 1777, the tavern became the de facto meeting place for the Legislative Council. Ratification the following year wouldn’t be the last momentous night out in downtown Dover, either: in 1790, the Legislative Council met here again to approve the Bill of Rights.

Most of the original bar and building were torn down in the 1830s to make way for a hotel, though a marker on the side of the building next door outlines the bar’s exploits and a Golden Fleece sign still overlooks the historic corner. The next best thing is the reincarnated Golden Fleece Tavern, just up the street. While it bears no connection to the original save its name, they pour Dover’s own local Fordham & Dominion Beer, just as the original is said to have done in the 1730s. 

At this free aviation museum, adjacent to the Dover Air Force Base, visitors can board and explore over 30 retired military aircraft, which makes it well-worth a visit on its own. The fact that many of the museum staff are themselves retired Air Force pilots who flew those planes personally is the cherry on top.

Here, aviation aficionados can climb an air traffic control tower, test their skills on a flight simulator, and get an up-close look at a range of aircraft, from bulky cargo haulers like the C-5A Galaxy and C-47A Skytrain to smaller fighters like the F-101B Voodoo and the A-26C Invader. If you’re lucky, you can request a tour guide who has first-hand knowledge of each plane’s function and operation. 

If you don’t plan around luck, the museum will be hosting Open Cockpit Days every third Saturday of the month from April to October 2023, in which retired pilots will be stationed in the respective cockpits of aircraft they’ve personally flown to field questions from visitors. 

Check here for hours of operation.

Cape Henlopen is home to a magnificent 5,200-acre state park where you can see shorebirds, lighthouses, wildflowers, and miles of pristine beaches. What you won’t see from above-ground is Fort Miles: a 15,000 square-foot underground bunker built to protect the U.S. from a Nazi attack that fortunately (as with Fort Delaware) never came. 

The fear of German U-boats trawling the Eastern seaboard drove the U.S. military to build defensive bunkers within the dunes here that were, at the time, one of the largest and most heavily armed coastal fortifications ever built. The bunkers housed an array of defensive artillery that could fire heavy rounds ten miles into the ocean, as well as a series of tunnels that allowed the 2,500 troops stationed here to move about undetected. 

After war’s end, Fort Miles pivoted to missile testing then highly classified Cold War operations before succumbing to abandonment and flooding, becoming a stomping ground for urban explorers by the end of the century. It was only in the early aughts that a group of local preservationists formed the Fort Miles Historical Association, restored the bunker, and made a museum of the defunct defense structure.

Visitors to the Fort Miles Museum can tour Battery 519, which once housed twin 12-inch artillery guns pointing out over the Atlantic Ocean, while learning about daily life within Fort Miles during wartime.  

Check here for museum opening hours and for information on how to schedule a visit.

Unlike Forts Delaware and Miles, the aptly named Cannonball House in Lewes is a living example of an attack that absolutely did happen. 

The Bombardment of Lewes, part of the War of 1812, was a minor episode in which British naval forces sought to disrupt maritime trade along the Delaware River by anchoring off the port town of Lewes and conducting raids along the coast. After Delaware authorities refused to provide them with supplies, the British shelled the town of Lewes for 22 hours straight. While there were, strikingly, no casualties, one cannonball lodged itself into the side of a brick home without threatening the stability of the structure despite being built in 1760. The building still stands today—cannonball and all—and now hosts a museum celebrating the town’s rich maritime heritage. 

With admission, visitors gain access to a range of significant maritime art and memorabilia, from an 1810 U.S. naval cannon to an early 20th century diving suit to the Fresnel Lens from Delaware’s Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse and, of course, one errant cannonball.

If you were at Burning Man in 2007, you may recognize this wood-and-steel installation of a treehouse. If you weren’t, you’d instantly recognize it as something that was built for Burning Man anyway. Indeed, the treehouse was built for the desert festival and took an unlikely journey to southern Delaware.

The 40-foot tall, eight-ton tree was built by an Oakland-based art collective out of primarily recycled and reclaimed materials. A spiral staircase leads to the rusted-out yet futuristic capsule containing a wood-stove, hand-crank phone, and an artistic rendition of a telescope peering out over a small balcony. For a D.I.Y. treehouse, the stained-glass windows and wood-flooring display an impressive level of craftsmanship. 

After showing out at Burning Man, the treehouse made its rounds to other similar arts and music festivals for a few years, but at one point, the owners had no home for their oversized art project. Luckily, the folks at Dogfish Head came across the treehouse online and made contact with the owners. The collective sold it to the brewery for $1, and ever since 2010, the Steampunk Treehouse has been the standout feature of Dogfish Head’s Milton, DE brewery.

The treehouse is open for visitation by anyone who pays for a brewery tour. Check here for prices and hours of operation.

Trap Pond State Park is home to the country’s northernmost stand of bald cypress trees which, for the arborally unversed, are the classic trees of southern swamps. But you’re not in the bayous of the American South, you’ve just made it to southern Delaware.

Beside the nine miles of canoe and kayak “trails” that lace this wetland forest park, visitors can also explore the breadth of Delaware’s natural beauty on solid ground via twelve miles of hiking, biking, and equestrian trails. For fisherfolk, the park is home to an excellent fishery packed with warm-water species from pickerel, bluegills, and catfish to American eels and largemouth bass. 

Between the fall foliage, winter snowfall, spring frog calls, and songbirds of summer, there’s no wrong time to visit, and with campsites, cabins, and yurts open year-round, there’s plenty of ways to spend the night. Look here for reservations and general camping information.