Pine Barrens Byway

The Pine Barrens Byway traverses a landscape of sublime natural beauty: the rare pygmy pines, lakes and streams fed by a 17 trillion gallon aquifer situated beneath sandy soils, and biomes that include a vast array of plant and animal life, some unique to the Pinelands and nationally protected. But the deeper charm and allure of the Pine Barrens and our Byway is even subtler than these things. The Pine Barrens were, and remain, a place to be unpacked, to explore, to ‘experience’... they are sometimes mysterious, and at all times profound in their beauty. A journey along the Byway beckons to the traveler to actively engage with the landscape as the original, indigenous inhabitants of the region did for thousands of years, and the European settlers that followed them generations later. The natural beauty that characterizes the setting of the Pine Barrens Byway is also intertwined with narrative, and stories of human experience. The Byway is not only a trip on a series of roads through the Pine Barrens. If the traveler is willing, it is a trip through time -through memory-, and a glimpse at one of the most unusual natural and cultural environments left in our nation.