Vacation In Acadia National Park
Hi! I’m Bill and this is my blog, Vacation In Acadia National Park. I hope you enjoy it. In this blog, you’ll find everything from camping to hotels, hiking to biking. And much more. Thanks for reading!
Acadia National Park is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. When you first arrive at Acadia, whether you are travelling by car or plane, it’s an experience that doesn’t require words to describe. You see the granite cliffs, rocky beaches and stunning views of Mount Desert Island and you realize that there is a place on Earth that hasn’t been touched by commercialism.
Autumn is the best time to visit Acadia. It’s when the leaves change colors, like a barrage of reds and yellows raining down the mountainsides. The ocean glints under the crisp blue sky, and the air warms up just enough to take off a layer. These are just some of the reasons why this is the best time of year to visit Acadia National Park.
Vacation In Acadia National Park
Travel into the heart of the Maine coastline and discover Acadia’s glistening waters and rugged mountain ranges. Explore the iconic peaks of Cadillac Mountain and Sargent Mountain, and climb along the coastline.
Imagine the solitude of a verdant forest dotted with glistening lakes and the rolling Atlantic, right here in Maine. That sounds good, doesn’t it? You and Lucy could spend your days walking the trails, sharing a picnic by a lake, or floating on a gentle river or pond. You could spend evening stargazing and gazing at the grandeur of gorgeous sunsets.
As of press time, some trails, campsites, and businesses are closed due to Covid-19 precautions. To check for safety protocols and potential closures, check individual websites before you go.
Unlike many national parks, a visit to Acadia can easily stand in for a visit to the state itself. The 49,076-acre site, predominantly located on Maine’s Mount Desert Island (MDI), is intertwined with fishing villages and tiny seasonal enclaves, and it’s not always clear where its boundaries are. Lobster boats rumble below Acadia’s cliffs as they move from buoy to buoy pulling traps. Uninhabited Bar Island, isolated from the rest of the park, is connected to downtown Bar Harbor via a strip of gravel beach, which serves as a natural sidewalk at low tide. The route to Bass Harbor Head Light, one of three lighthouses managed by the park, passes through neighborhoods where yards are filled with towers of lobster traps. The Abenaki people, who have migrated between this coast and inland Maine for thousands of years, share their continuing story at the Abbe Museum, which has a location both inside and outside the park. You get the picture: it’s impossible to explore Acadia without getting acquainted with the tiny communities around it, too.
When I visit Acadia, which is often, I feel I’m entering an elegant wilderness, a land hardened by glaciers and waves and weather that’s been groomed by human hands. That fanciful notion is rooted in the park’s history, at least on MDI, home to Acadia’s famous ocean-hugging Park Loop Road. The park’s founder and first superintendent, George Bucknam Dorr, was a wealthy MDI summer resident in the early 1900s. He spent 40 years cobbling together land parcels, using his own money and that of others he lobbied. Among his legacies are the rustic, hand-built stone stairways found on some of Acadia’s steepest slopes. These paths inspire awe because the labor required to construct them is almost unfathomable.
John D. Rockefeller Jr. also had a hand in the creation of MDI. Aside from donating nearly one-quarter of Acadia’s acreage, Rockefeller’s 45 miles of carriage roads and stone bridges are among the park’s defining features. Like Dorr’s stairways, his wide broken-stone paths meld into the boreal and deciduous forests’ ridges and valleys as if nature intended them to be there. Rockefeller also partially financed the construction of the paved Park Loop Road. It was his way of accepting the inevitable coming of the car traffic he loathed, while ensuring the carriage roads would remain auto-free.
The Atlantic Ocean is the main attraction at Acadia. Most—though not all—activities involve finding ways to engage with it, whether that’s hiking along the coast, climbing the many pink granite cliffs, or kayaking or sailing to its offshore islands. Experience it up close at places like Sand Beach (a name that may seem unimaginative to you, but it’s a testament to how rare sand beaches are around here) or Thunder Hole, which booms with rushing waves. For sweeping panoramas, hike to the top of its numerous bald peaks. However you encounter the park, you’ll sense the power that carved this land and the lives of the people on it.
What You Need to Know Before Visiting
You may need a vehicle reservation. Acadia ranks among the top-ten most visited national parks, yet it’s also among the smallest and most congested. Beginning this summer, the National Park Service is requiring vehicle reservations to drive on the Cadillac Summit Road during daylight hours, including sunrise, when thousands flock to the East Coast’s highest point (1,529 feet) to watch the day’s first rays spill over Frenchman Bay. (For part of the year, Cadillac is also the first place in the U.S. to see the sunrise.) The future promises similar plans to manage traffic along the two-mile stretch of Ocean Drive that is home to the Jordan Pond House restaurant, where people craving an airy popover with strawberry jam and a view of the Bubbles mountain peaks circle endlessly looking for a parking space.
The Island Explorer will be your lifeline. This free shuttle bus is the best way to avoid the frustrating search for parking at popular destinations like Cadillac Mountain, Jordan Pond House, Sand Beach, and Thunder Hole. Island Explorer operates all day and into the night from mid-June to mid-October. Ten routes link village centers, hotels, and campgrounds with points in Acadia’s MDI and Schoodic districts. I use it to solo-hike one of my favorite routes—the wide-open granite spines of Champlain and Gorham Mountains (park at the Tarn on Route 3, ascend via Beachcroft Path, and follow the Champlain South Ridge and Gorham Mountain Trails to Monument Cove on Park Loop Road, then catch the bus at Sand Beach for a ride back to your car).
You can bring your pup. Acadia is one of very few national parks that allows dogs, as long as they are leashed at all times. Along with trails and carriage roads, pets are permitted at the Blackwoods, Seawall, and Schoodic Woods campgrounds. The exception is Duck Harbor on Isle au Haut, though dogs are allowed on day hikes on that island.
There’s more to Acadia than MDI. Without a doubt, you get the biggest bang for your buck in Acadia’s MDI section, with its extensive coastline, 100 miles of hiking trails, and 45 miles of car-free carriage roads. But Acadia’s other two districts, on the Schoodic Peninsula and Isle au Haut, are every bit as beautiful. Just a fraction of the park’s 3.4 million annual visitors make the hour’s drive from Bar Harbor to 2,266-acre Schoodic, on the east side of Frenchman Bay. There are no mountains here and no soaring cliffs. Rather, Schoodic soothes with slow pleasures. A six-mile one-way loop road hugs the peninsula’s pink-granite shoreline, with plenty of turnouts to stop and watch lobster boats in the bay and to clamor over the wave-beaten headland at Schoodic Point. The lightly trafficked, mostly flat road makes for a terrific leisurely bike ride. Get your heart pumping on the eight miles of gravel bike trails that wind through the forest of pine and spruce trees draped with gray-green bearded lichen. Most of the 7.5 miles of hiking trails are short, but all are rewarding, and it’s easy to cobble together longer hikes. Several paths lead to Schoodic Head, the peninsula’s highest point at 440 feet.
Visiting Isle au Haut, 15 miles southwest of MDI, takes extra planning, but it’s worth it. Slightly more than half of the 8,000-acre island is privately owned and part of the lobstering town of Isle au Haut (with a year-round population of 50). The rest belongs to Acadia and receives 6,000 to 7,000 visitors annually. Eighteen miles of rugged, mostly oceanside trails are the draw. If you have time for just one hike, make it the 3.7-mile Western Head loop, which dips and rises across rocky beaches and cliffs. There are no motels and inns on Isle au Haut, only rental homes and five primitive campsites within the park’s perimeter. Likewise, there’s no car ferry and no paved roads. In summer, the local mail boat makes daily round-trips from the coastal town of Stonington to Isle au Haut’s town landing and to Duck Harbor, near the campground and trailheads.