Acadia
| Route 66 | Cities | Beaches |
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Acadia |
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| Getting There | Lodging | Restaurants | Hiking | Cruises | Attractions | Carriage Roads | Fishing |
Acadia is our most unique national park. All the parks are special in some way, but Acadia has mountains, forests, lakes, hiking trails and the usual Deer, Bear, Fox, Beaver, Wildcat and Mink existing adjacent to ocean, tidal basins, towering waves, offshore islands and a population of Whales, Seals, Puffins, Octopi, Lobsters and Porpoises. You can hike, bike, climb, and ride horses or carriages, but you can also go on kayak or boat cruises to watch Whales, Seals, Puffins, Lobsters and Porpoises. You can hike trails which a few hours later are under 15 feet of seawater. Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the U.S. to see sunlight every morning. Schoodic Point and Thunder Hole see waves crash against rocks with loud roars and send spray 40 feet high. You can hike trails along a beach or up granite slopes so steep they need rungs, railings, chains, ropes and ladders. You can bike along 48 miles of century old Carriage Roads where no motorized vehicles have ever been allowed. |
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But Acadia is one of our three most remote parks, along with Big Bend and Theodore Roosevelt. There's no interstate nearby. It's a long drive up the coast from anywhere. Amtrak stops at Portland, a three hour drive. The nearest airports are at Portland and Bangor. So getting here requires a major effort. And lodging is difficult and expensive. Whether staying in a lodge, hotel, inn, bed & breakfast, cabin, or campground, you need reservations as much as a year in advance. Rooms run from $300 to $800 a night, campsites from $40 to $60 a night, and cabins from $400 to $600 a night. It's a matter of supply and demand. It's a magnificent park, the number of people wanting to come here is great, and there is only so much lodging available with no room to build more. So you need to budget for a trip here and make all arrangements well ahead. But we still recommend it. Like Yellowstone, the Tetons and Hatteras Island, also expensive and needing advance reservations, it's worth it. |
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