Greetings from Wild Wood Crest, NJ! My vacation this weekend has actually inspired what I am writing about this week, and I hope it can inspire you to do a wonderful and spontaneous vacation to the beach sometime soon. Now, I know what you're thinking "Why would I go to the beach in Septemeber and not during the summer?" Well, actually there are several perks of being at the beach off season. Below, I have listed my top reasons.

1. Hotel prices drop (a lot).

The hotel that I usually stay at with my family is the one that I am going to be basing this small section off of and the room will be one room efficiency. The name of the hotel is called Apollo, and yes if you would like to see for yourself, the website is http://www.apollomotel.com/ . According to their 2016 rates, after the period of August 21 to September 1 (what most would consider the end of beach season), the price of the room drops $31 for the time period of September 5 to September 14. And from there, the price drops another $41 for September 18 to October 2. For some people, that may not sound like much of a difference, but if you stay four nights, that is a saving between $124 and $164, and that's a good amount of money.

2. There are several sales and specials going on everywhere.

Something that comes along with it being almost the end of the season for most stores to be open, there are sales EVERYWHERE. They do this because they want to get rid of as much as possible so they don't have much carryover for the next season. For example, those cute custom sweatshirts that cost $50 during the summer drop to $10. I don't know about you, but that is a lot less and more reasonable for my wallet. Not only do clothing stores have stuff that goes on sale, but restaurants also have their prices drop and more specials going on. They do this typically because you don't have nearly as many tourists, so it's typically the locals that are coming in.

3. Fewer crowds everywhere.

Like I said previously, there won't be as many tourists in the area, so that means the people you're meeting are the people that are lucky enough to live there and are most likely retired. With this being said, I find the people friendlier during off season too. And you might be lucky enough to have some tell you about great places to eat and go to!

4. Way less traffic on the Garden State Parkway and around town.

Granted, I left on a Wednesday before 3pm, but the traffic on the Parkway was extremely light compared to what it is during the summer. It made it nice to get down to the beach around dinner time. In addition to there being less traffic, it also reduced the risk of running into accidents or being in one for that matter. In addition to the highway traffic, there is not much traffic around town. This makes it faster to get to other beach towns, which is very nice because you get to do more.

Well, that's a wrap for this weeks article. I should get going because I still have yet to eat breakfast at my favorite diner. Happy fall by the way! And don't be afraid to go to the beach in the off season. (: