City: Coastal Maine, ME

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (207) 667-5796

Description: When the Island Explorer bus service was first proposed as a way to alleviate the traffic headaches that can tie up Acadia on a hot summer day, there were a lot of naysayers. People are too tied to their vehicles to want to climb aboard propane-fired buses, they argued. They were proved spectacularly wrong. The buses turned out to be a great success—they carted 352,000 park visitors around the island in 2007, or more than 4,400 a day in summer—linking hotels, restaurants, campgrounds, boats, and ferries to the national park. Eight routes crisscross the island, taking passengers to popular destinations like downtown Bar Harbor and Sand Beach and traveling as far as the Schoodic Peninsula. They run as often as every 15 minutes, they’re on time and efficient, and they’ll take you virtually everywhere you might want to go on Mount Desert. And best of all they’re free, thanks to support from the National Park Service, the U.S. and Maine Departments of Transportation, local businesses, Friends of Acadia, and L.L. Bean (which donated a grant to allow the buses to run through Columbus Day). Quite aside from the environmental benefit the fleet provides—taking all those cars off the roads and using the less-polluting propane gas—they take all the headaches away from drivers. The buses start to roll as early as 6:45 a.m. downtown and continue to do so until 11 p.m. Pick up a copy of the schedule at a variety of spots downtown, call, or visit the Web site for full details.