For a state famous for its rocky coast, Maine has its share of wide, sandy beaches. The rocks don’t really begin to rule until after Portland; the South Coast is a place of fine strands, great swimming, and a genuine beach culture. People flock to Ogunquit and Old Orchard and Goose Rocks and Scarborough beaches like seagulls to the snack bin, and whole communities have been built to cater to these sun worshippers. At the other end of the spectrum are the beaches east of Ellsworth, which tend to be rockier, quieter—and colder, if that’s at all possible. From quiet neighborhood beaches to big amusement park-style strands, you can find whatever you’re looking for in Maine.
Many people say that a Maine vacation isn’t quite complete unless you’ve gotten out onto the ocean, felt the sea spray on your face, smelled the rich brine, and seen the state from the deck of a boat. And plenty of options for seagoing await, whether they be climbing aboard a classic schooner for a six-day sail, heading out on a half-day nature cruise in search of whales and puffins, dropping a line from a deep-sea fishing boat, sliding into a kayak and exploring coves, or donning a wet suit and diving under for an hour.
The best places to start your search for offshore adventure are resort communities like Kennebunkport, Boothbay Harbor, Camden, and Bar Harbor or the state’s largest city, Portland, where there is an infrastructure for tourism. These towns are where excursion boats are most concentrated and most easily found, but even tiny Cutler and Jonesport have their boat rides. If you’re interested in kayaking, your options multiply, as that graceful sport has exploded in Maine since the 1980s, and it’s hard to find a town without a sea kayak outfitter.
While heading out on a windjammer cruise will set you back some serious change—some boats are more than $100 a day—there are plenty of ways of getting afloat that won’t sink your bank account. An afternoon kayak tour can be as little as $25, and there are sunset cruises and half-day sails that are eminently reasonable.
Many vessels offer more than one type of trip, maybe whale watching one day and deep-sea fishing the next. They’re listed in this chapter by their primary specialty. We tried to include excursion boats with regular schedules rather than charter vessels.
The Maine coast may be largely developed these days, but thankfully, a lot of shoreline has been preserved over the centuries. From Kittery to Quoddy, there are miles and miles of forest to explore, many mountains to hike, routes to bike, gardens to enjoy, and unique nature preserves to visit. Outdoor adventurers will find no end of things to do and will have to come back again and again before they begin to see half of what the state has to offer.
Some of the finest stretches of green space on the coast are managed by the federal government or by the state, either as parks or public lands. There are 19 coastal state parks, and they provide visitors with truly great hiking (see Camden Hills or Quoddy Head in this chapter), exceptional swimming and sunbathing (see earlier Beaches chapter), and fine picnicking on the shore. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a handful of reserves along the waterfront, including the Rachel Carson, Petit Manan, and Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuges.
Other great recreation areas are overseen by conservation outfits. Maine Audubon has several properties, as does the Nature Conservancy. Even small local groups like the Damariscotta River Association, the Boothbay Region Land Trust, and the Georges River Land Trust have made their marks on the state, saving spectacular parcels of land from becoming condo communities or making arrangements with landowners to allow public use. All of this effort has resulted in an array of nature preserves and gardens.
You’ll surely run out of time before you run out of places to explore.
The single biggest attraction Down East and the state’s only national park, Acadia is the reason more than two million people a year visit Maine. It has been called the crown jewel in the National Park system, and it’s truly a stunner. Occupying much of Mount Desert Island and a few other nearby points, Acadia is a geologic marvel, an Atlantic wonderland of sea and surf and summits. The park sprawls for close to 50,000 acres, including miles of dramatic shoreline, the only genuine fjord in the Lower 48, several lakes, 26 peaks, 120 miles of trails, and innumerable ponds. As such, it’s an outdoor lover’s paradise, with exceptional hiking, biking, walking, swimming, climbing, and kayaking. And there’s plenty to see from a car window, too.
Acadia dominates the Mount Desert Island map, spread on either side of the island, which is divided in two by the sea, split by scenic Somes Sound. The heaviest concentration of parklands—and the most popular sites—are on the east side, where the resort town of Bar Harbor is also located. This is where you’ll find the Park Loop Road, and where Thunder Hole, Otter Cliffs, Great Head, Sand Beach, Jordan Pond, Blackwoods Camping Area, and Cadillac Mountain all reside. Across the sound—a glacially carved fjord—is what is known as the island’s “quiet side,” a place that sees far less tourism than does Bar Harbor but that can still get busy in the full blush of summer.
Bar Harbor is all about tourism, the very picture of a resort community (see Area Overview chapter). It has all the restaurants, shops, and B&Bs anyone could ever want, all attractively packaged into the tidy brick streets and venerable lanes of one of the oldest summer colonies in the country. Several painters of the Hudson River school made their way to the island in the mid-1800s, among them Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, and the paintings they made here attracted many early vacationers. By 1880, there were 30 hotels on the island, and, not long after that, the captains of American industry began to summer over, building huge mansions and calling them “cottages.” Originally drawn here to escape the heat of New York and Philadelphia, the Carnegies and Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Astors soon remade the island in their own image, creating an exclusive community of estates, parties, and all the luxurious trappings.
Thankfully, though, these wealthy folks from away also had the foresight to see that the mountains and sea that they loved needed to be preserved for future generations. One of them, textile heir and conservationist George Dorr, devoted more than 40 years to making that happen. Dorr worked on his affluent friends and neighbors until they relented, donating land piece by piece. John D. Rockefeller himself helped acquire nearly a third of the park’s acreage, and Harvard president Charles Eliot was instrumental as well. The land was then turned over to the federal government, and in 1919 Acadia National Park opened to the public as the first national park in the East. (It was originally called Lafayette National Park; in 1929 the name was changed to Acadia, derived from the term the French used for these lands, L’Acadie.)
Acadia has been extraordinarily popular since. Unfortunately, most people who visit miss the good stuff. They content themselves with a drive along the two-lane Park Loop Road, the 20-mile byway that circuits the eastern half of Acadia, and then head into Bar Harbor. And while the Park Loop Road is truly spectacular—an Atlantic Coast highway of sorts, passing underneath mountains, alongside cliffs, and a skip from the surging sea—there is so much more to the park than that. To best enjoy Acadia, you have to leave the car behind and get out into it.