Rehoboth is the Delaware beach town other towns get measured against, and it earns it honestly — the boardwalk actually goes somewhere, the fudge shops are actually good, and the crowd on a Friday night in July is doing exactly what beach-town crowds are supposed to do: eating too much, staying out too late, arguing about where to get pizza at midnight.
It's also bigger than its reputation as pure boardwalk chaos. Walk two blocks off Rehoboth Avenue and the town turns into quiet cottage streets and towering shade trees. The trick to loving Rehoboth is treating the boardwalk as dessert, not the whole meal.
Skip the boardwalk between noon and 4 PM in high summer — it's a different, better town at 9 AM with coffee, and again after 9 PM once the day-trippers clear out.