Maine Coast: Portland, Camden and Acadia

1. Day 1: Arrive in Portland

   Portland International Jetport to the Old Port

   • Drive about 15 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Portland
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Portland International Jetport (PWM), about 5 km from downtown, and plan to land by about 3 pm; a driver meets you and takes you to your hotel near the Old Port. Portland sits on a hilly peninsula in Casco Bay, and its waterfront still works for a living: fishing boats, lobster wharves and the island ferries share it with cafes and shops. Much of the brick downtown was rebuilt after the great fire of July 1866, which is why so many Old Port streets look of a piece. At about 5 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the week, then leads an easy hour on foot through the cobbled lanes and along Commercial Street to the wharves, so you have your bearings before dinner. The welcome dinner is at a restaurant in the Old Port, with Maine seafood on the menu and other choices for anyone who does not eat it.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Portland International Jetport (PWM)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Old Port orientation walk
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the 5 pm briefing

   Activity: About 2 km on foot, on cobbles in places.

   

2. Day 2: Cape Elizabeth lighthouses and the Casco Bay islands

   Portland to Portland Head Light and Two Lights, then the ferry to Peaks Island

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Portland
   Day 2 details

   We drive out to Cape Elizabeth after an early breakfast and reach Fort Williams Park at about 8:30, ahead of the tour coaches. Portland Head Light, first lit in 1791 and the oldest lighthouse in Maine, stands white on a ledge above the surf; there is time for the cliff path, the ruins of the old fort and the small museum in the keeper's house once it opens. A few minutes down the shore are Two Lights, the pair of towers that gave the state park its name, of which only one still shines. Lunch is lobster or a lobster roll at a lobster shack on the rocks, with chowder and other choices for those who prefer them. In the afternoon a Casco Bay Lines ferry takes us from the Portland waterfront past Fort Gorges, a granite fort built on a harbour ledge during the Civil War years, to Peaks Island, about 20 minutes out. Walk the quiet back shore of the island with your guide, or sit by the water, then ferry back. The evening is free in Portland.

   Included

   • Portland Head Light and Fort Williams Park, Cape Elizabeth, with the lighthouse museum
   • Two Lights, Cape Elizabeth
   • Lobster shack lunch on the shore
   • Casco Bay Lines ferry to Peaks Island and back
   • Walk on Peaks Island with your guide

   Easier option: Stay on the Portland waterfront for the afternoon instead of the ferry, with time for the Portland Museum of Art (entry paid on the day).

   More active option: Rent a bike on Peaks Island and ride the road around the island, about 6 km (rental paid on the day).

   Free time: Evening free

   Activity: About 5 to 7 km on foot over the day, on paved paths and a quiet island road.

   

3. Day 3: Pemaquid Point and up to Camden

   Portland to Pemaquid Point, then Rockland and Camden, with Mount Battie in the Camden Hills

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Camden
   Day 3 details

   We leave Portland at about 8:30 and follow the coast road north and east through Brunswick and Wiscasset, then turn down the Pemaquid peninsula to Pemaquid Point, about two hours from Portland. The lighthouse, built in 1835, stands above ridges of dark and pale striped rock that run straight into the surf; it is the one on Maine's state quarter. In season you can climb the tower, and the old keeper's house holds a small fishermen's museum. Lunch is a sit-down meal in Rockland, a working harbour town on Penobscot Bay. Camden is twenty minutes on, and we arrive by about 2:30 to check in and catch our breath. In the late afternoon, as the light warms, we drive the road to the top of Mount Battie in Camden Hills State Park, about 240 m above the harbour. From the stone tower on the summit you look down on Camden's masts and out over the islands of Penobscot Bay, the view Edna St. Vincent Millay put into a poem in 1912. The evening is free in Camden.

   Included

   • Pemaquid Point Lighthouse and the fishermen's museum, with entry
   • Sit-down lunch in Rockland
   • Mount Battie in Camden Hills State Park, with park entry

   More active option: Walk up Mount Battie from the edge of town on the Mount Battie Trail, a short, steep climb of about 1 km over rock, and meet the group at the top.

   Free time: Evening free in Camden

   Activity: Short walks only; the Mount Battie Trail option is steep and rocky. The Pemaquid tower is open to climb from late May to about mid-October, run by volunteers.

   

4. Day 4: A schooner sail, then on to Bar Harbor

   Camden harbour under sail, then by road to the Penobscot Narrows and Bar Harbor

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Bar Harbor
   Day 4 details

   Camden's harbour is home port to traditional schooners that take guests out on Penobscot Bay. After a slow breakfast we board one at about 10 am for a two-hour sail: the crew may ask for hands on the halyards, and on a clear day you look back at the Camden Hills rising straight from the water, with lighthouses, islands and lobster buoys all around. Lunch is ashore in Camden. Early in the afternoon we drive north along the bay through Belfast to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, where an elevator inside one of the bridge towers rises to an observatory about 128 m above the river, looking up the Penobscot and down the bay. Fort Knox, a granite fort begun in the 1840s, stands beside it and is on the same ticket. From there it is about an hour and a quarter to Bar Harbor, where we stay two nights. The rest of the day is yours: walk the Shore Path along Frenchman Bay from Agamont Park, or, if the tide is low, cross the gravel bar to Bar Island with your guide's tide times.

   Included

   • Two-hour schooner day sail from Camden harbour
   • Lunch in Camden
   • Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory and Fort Knox, with entry

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Bar Harbor

   Activity: Sails depend on wind and weather, and the Camden day-sail season usually ends in early to mid October; if the schooner cannot go out, we swap in another boat trip or a coastal walk. The bar to Bar Island is passable on foot only for about an hour and a half either side of low tide.

   

5. Day 5: Cadillac at sunrise and a day in Acadia

   Cadillac Mountain, the carriage roads to Jordan Pond, then the Park Loop Road and the Ocean Path

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Bar Harbor
   Day 5 details

   An early start for first light from Cadillac Mountain, at 466 m the highest point in Acadia National Park. Cars need a timed reservation for the summit road for most of the season, and we apply for ours the moment the slots are released. We leave Bar Harbor about an hour before sunrise: about 4:00 am in June and July, nearer 5:45 to 6:00 by mid-October. We wait on the pink granite as the sky lightens over Frenchman Bay and the Porcupine Islands, and are back for breakfast and a rest. Mid-morning we head for the carriage roads John D. Rockefeller Jr. built between 1913 and 1940: about 45 miles of broken-stone roads closed to cars, with granite bridges over the streams. Ride a bike around Eagle Lake and on to Jordan Pond, about 13 km, or walk a shorter stretch with your guide. Lunch is at Jordan Pond House, looking up the water to the two rounded hills called the Bubbles. In the afternoon we drive the Park Loop Road to Sand Beach and walk the Ocean Path past Thunder Hole to Otter Cliff. Tonight is the farewell lobster dinner.

   Included

   • Cadillac Mountain at sunrise, with the summit road reservation
   • Acadia National Park entry
   • Bike rental for the carriage roads, or a carriage-road walk with your guide
   • Lunch at Jordan Pond House
   • Park Loop Road, Sand Beach and the Ocean Path to Thunder Hole and Otter Cliff
   • Farewell lobster dinner

   Easier option: Sleep in and skip the sunrise, then join the group after breakfast; on the carriage roads, walk a flat 2 km to the nearest stone bridge and wait for the riders at Jordan Pond House.

   More active option: Instead of the bike, hike from Jordan Pond up South Bubble to Bubble Rock, about 3 km round trip with a short, steep scramble, before lunch.

   Free time: Rest after the sunrise, until mid-morning

   Activity: The fullest day: a pre-dawn start, about 13 km by bike on gravel carriage roads with gentle climbs, and about 3 km on the Ocean Path over uneven granite. Fog can hide the sunrise; your guide checks the forecast the night before.

   

6. Day 6: Bar Harbor to Portland

   Bar Harbor to Portland International Jetport, by way of Bangor

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 6 details

   A last morning on Mount Desert Island. Early risers can walk the Shore Path once more before breakfast, when the harbour is quiet and the lobster boats are heading out to their traps. We leave Bar Harbor at about 8:30 for the drive back to Portland, about 285 km and three and a half hours on Route 3 and Route 1A to Bangor and then Interstate 95 south, with a coffee and stretch stop on the way. It is the longest drive of the trip, so we keep it to the morning and you are at Portland International Jetport (PWM) by about 12:30 pm, or at an Old Port hotel if you are staying on. If you are flying home from Bangor International Airport (BGR) instead, we drop you there as we pass, about an hour from Bar Harbor. Your guide checks your flight before saying goodbye. If you want more time on the coast, we can add hotel nights in Bar Harbor or Portland before or after the trip.

   Included

   • Drop-off at Portland International Jetport (PWM) or an Old Port hotel, or at Bangor International Airport (BGR) on the way

   Optional experiences

   • Extra hotel nights in Bar Harbor or Portland (priced at booking)

   Free time: Early morning free

   Activity: Book a flight leaving Portland after about 3 pm, or Bangor after about 11:30 am.

   

Wildlife and weather: June brings long days and fresh green but the foggiest mornings; July and August are the warmest months, with coastal highs often in the low to mid 20s C, and the busiest in Acadia; September is usually clearer and quieter; by early to mid October the hardwoods on Mount Desert Island turn and the days are cool. Fog can hide the Cadillac sunrise on any morning. Harbour seals, cormorants and eider ducks are often seen from the boats; whales and puffins need separate trips from Bar Harbor, which we can add.

• Portland2 nights
• Camden1 night
• Bar Harbor2 nights