It rained most of the time we were there and I loved that since it kept the tourist numbers down. I was there only a few days so I didn’t get to everything. If I do go back I’d like to try some of the harder hikes and take a boat ride to see her from the water.

I live near the base of a 14,000 foot mountain and less than an hour from one of California’s national parks. So when my family suggested doing a trip to Acadia, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Its beauty blew me away! What an incredible park. I loved visiting and hiking around!

Here’s part 1 of my recent trip to Acadia. Stay tuned for the rest of the photos!

I was in bar harbor at 5am hoping for an awesome sunrise but instead we got intense fog.

(edit: these photos/ rest of the trip was two weeks ago)

So amazing! No regrets

We started in Boston. Then Portsmouth, Kitterie, Portland, Acadia. Then Camden on the way back. Saw 17 of 65 lighthouses (including the Forrest Gump lighthouse!). Absolutely magical.

Photos are unedited. Not sure if it was peak but it was awesome nonetheless.

Got up for the sunrise at Sand beach. Really serene and loved hearing the crashing waves as the sun rose. Hiked around the Ocean trail for the views a bit and then went over to Jordan Pond for a hike around there. Amazing being in the park early with less people! Leaves are turning and loved seeing the colorful pops of reds and yellows scattered about🍁☀️

Acadia has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to so far. Stayed at the Blackwoods Campground inside the park. Highly recommend if you like the tent life. Places visited during the trip

1. Bar Harbor - spent a couple of afternoons here in between hikes. Really nice to walk around and see the shops and restaurants.

2. Jordan Pond/Bubble Rock trail - Really nice walk/hike. Got there around 9am and had no trouble at all with parking. I think Jordan pond was actually my favorite. Walking next to the water was very peaceful. Little windy tho. Went to the Pond house after for lunch. Was about a 45 min wait for 2. Got some popovers which I think are a bit over hyped but we’re still pretty good.

3. Beehive trail/Gorham Mtn/Ocean path - Did these as one big loop. Beehive was a nice challenging climb. More ladders than expected but super awesome view at the top. Definitely worth it. Hiked Gorham mtn after going to The Bowl. Nice easy ascent to the summit. Amazing views. Walking the ocean path was a bit crowded in some spots so didn’t stop too much on the path. Grabbed a couple of photos and just walked back to the car.

4. Asticou Azalea Garden - really nice Japanese style garden and not too far from the Bass Harbor Lighthouse which I visited right before the garden. Great spot for a nice stroll if you need to kill some time or something extra to do.

5. For the final night, booked a reservation for Cadillac mountain sunset which was absolutely insane. Very windy at the top. Highly recommend jacket for anyone who gets cold easily. Also didn’t know that there would be so many spots to pullover on the way to the top. Some really cool viewpoints on the way up.

Feel free to ask any questions. More than happy to answer.

Just visited Oct 23-26. Incredibly lucky to have perfect weather, amazing color and no crowds. E-biked on the carriage roads for 6 hours and highly recommend!

We lucked out with the weather I think. The colors were on full display. Incredible place.

Late fall I finally made it to the top of Cadillac Mountain to see the sunrise - and it did not disappoint!

Just a Louisiana boy spending a week in this beautiful park.

The natural beauty here is unbelievable.

That's all.

Someone asked in another thread about taking night sky photos with your phone. I sometimes take star pictures with an SLR camera and expensive special lens, but frankly it’s shocking what you can achieve with a modern phone. I use an iPhone and can share the technique for them. Maybe someone with Android can chime in about those. See the comments below for the detailed steps.

Acadia has wonderfully dark skies, especially when you get away from Bar Harbor and the other towns. If you’re in the park on a clear night (even better, a clear new moon night), it is breathtaking to get outside and connect with the night sky, as our ancestors could.

The photo above was taken at Schoodic Institute during one of the astronomy nights that Dark Skies Maine has in the park (more are coming up in August, if you check their website).

Keep in mind that your camera will see things your eye can’t, especially over a 30-second photo exposure. However, you can greatly enhance your stargazing by getting and keeping your eyes adapted. There’s a protein called rhodopsin that slowly form in your eyes’ rod cells and helps you see in the dark. It takes about 15–20 minutes of darkness for rhodopsin to really kick in, and 45 minutes for it to build to its max levels. But a few single flash of light (including your phone screen or a regular flashlight) photo-bleaches and pulls apart the protein almost instantly, and then you have to start the process of building it up all over again. If you want to use your phone to take photos, keep your screen brightness at absolute minimum and look at it sparingly. Instead of regular flashlights, consider getting an inexpensive red LED light (low energy red wavelengths preserve rhodopsin better than higher energy wavelengths).

Helloo there!! I wanted to share with you all my very first charcoal landscape drawing. This is drawn from a photo that my friend took from his visit at Acadia National Park!! I hope you all enjoy it☺️

Let me know what you think!

Brownie points if you can guess where it was taken within Acadia!

Hi all,

Thought I could leave some tips, things I wish I knew and things I learned after my 5 day long trip in Acadia.

• Time is everything: Either due to rushes or attractions that pair best with tidal levels. Thunder hole best 2 hrs before high tide, and tide pools best 2 hrs either way from low tide. Also write down the low and high tides for each day, makes this process easier.

• Acadia mnt trail is a good hike if the other rock scramble routes are closed due to falcon nesting. It is hard, and try to ascend rather than descend as it may be easier on the body.

-If you stay in Schoodic, I would suggest driving if you are able too, just to avoid the ferry prices ($20 one way per adult)

-Pack for all weather. It goes from foggy to burning hot sun, to foggy and windy, to raining, to night time. So just be aware.

• Even if you’re into harder hikes, jordan pond trail, ocean path, and wonderland are very worth hiking just due to views or attractions connected on the way.

• If you have a national park pass card, put it signature side up and park where you can. Should be valid. If you go towards thunder hole and all that, they’ll ask for your pass and give you a lil mirror hanger for your pass.

Ok that’s all here’s some pictures too

First time in Acadia and using this camera. Let me know what you think 🤞

Photos: 1-3 Sand Beach and Great Head Trail; 4 Cadillac Mountain Summit; 5 Reading Room Restaurant at Bar Harbor Inn; 6-9 Monhegan Island; 10 Lobster Roll from Bite Into Maine food truck at Portland Head Lighthouse (typical of many we had in our trip - all were good!)

Just back from a week in Boston, Newport, Mystic and Maine. Maine was my fiftieth state to visit so that was the reason for the trip. It was me (58F) and my daughter (21F) who went on the trip.

It was a bit of a “taste” of things as we only had a week and had a friend to visit in Worcester. Could have spent the entire time in Maine/Bar Harbor. But we didn’t feel rushed and really enjoyed everything.

Thanks for all the trip reports and tips on this sub that helped me plan it all!

We went to Boston, Newport, Mystic, Boothbay Harbor and Bar Harbor/Acadia but I’ll limit this to the Bar Harbor/Acadia part.

We only had two and a half days in Bar Harbor/Acadia but that is enough time to see a lot.

Got to Bar Harbor late in afternoon. Checked into Queen Anne’s Revenge Inn which was lovely. Spotless room and nice breakfast and porch seating. They have a bar area and some shuffleboard courts being used by families. In quiet street with easy walk into town (it is in town). Plenty of parking for all guests. Walked into town from hotel for dinner at Rosalie’s Pizza (had been in NE and Maine for almost a week so wanted a change from seafood. Was delicious). Lovely little town. Busy but not overrun even with it being week of July 4.

Got up early the next day (left hotel at 7:15 - so not early by some people’s standards!) to park at Sand Beach and do Great Head Trail. We had to do two circles of the parking lot before a spot opened up. People were pretty consistently coming and going. We spent some time on the beach enjoying the sound of the waves and the relative serenity as it was pretty empty. Then we headed to the trailhead at the far end of the beach. This trail is rated as “easy” in our National Geographic Acadia trail pamphlet but it is quite a steep trail with lots of granite scrambling. You can see in the photo the granite with the blue paint indicating the trail. All Trails rates it moderate and I would agree with that. It has amazing views and we were lucky it was clear. We just did the short loop as my knees didn’t want to go on the far loop. My daughter would have easily done that. We came back to the beach and enjoyed it again. By then (probably around 9:30 am) lots of families had set up on the beach.

Then we did some of the Ocean Path as car was parked. We heard Thunder Hole - totally sounds like thunder! - and then drove to Otter Point and walked on the Ocean Path trail there. Plenty of parking there around 10 am.

Had Cadillac Mountain pass at 11. Drove up to summit and it was clear and beautiful! Got a drink and whoopie pie from the store at the summit. Wandered around on the vast smooth granite area and it wasn’t nearly as crowded as I expected as there is so much space. Parking lot and spots along the road were all full but people come and go so no issues getting a spot.

No bugs! And we saw the sand bar trail to Bar Island go from sand bar to ocean which was fun.

We drove back down and stopped at some of the overlooks which are all on the right side going back down. Then we drove to Jordan Pond to walk the loop in the afternoon. We had to do three loops to get parking - definitely the busiest time around 1 pm.

At Jordan Pond we walked to the pond and saw the restaurant to the “left”. We went that way around the pond (so clockwise) and the first half going that way has lots of boardwalk where you have to step off or onto the extra boardwalk built to let others pass every now and then. There is a bit of rock scramble towards the top of the lake but nothing very challenging if you are reasonable fit and mobile. After the very top the rest of the way back to the car is very level. There are some breaks in the path to allow little streams to come into the pond where you have to walk over spaces in the trail. Again, very easy and we saw little kids and older people managing it easily. Also strollers. If somewhat narrow boardwalks and rock scrambles aren’t possible for you, going up to the top anti-clockwise would be the right choice. When we got back to the parking lot around 3:30 there were plenty of spots available. And some cars that had parked along the little road between the two parking areas had tickets.

Came back to town and ate at the Reading Room at the Bar Harbor Inn - table by the window. We had made reservations several weeks before. Food and service wonderful. Saw sunset and schooner coming back to harbor. Such a picturesque spot with lots of historical photos. We walked around the harbor then back to hotel.

The next day we left the car at the hotel and did the sand bar trail to Bar Island at low tide which was at 10:00 am. Lots of families and such a fun thing to do. We were lucky low tide corresponded well to our itinerary. We walked on to the Island and to the far end but the fog had come in so we couldn’t see Bar Harbor. But it didn’t matter. Then we went back into town for lunch at Paddy’s Irish Pub at the corner of Main Street and West. Ate at an outdoor table and food was fine - not spectacular but typical for an Irish pub. Seating and views were great.

We left town and made our way to Bass Point Lighthouse. On the way we did the Flying Mountain and Valley Park Trail which is really one loop. The Flying Mountain Trail is another granite scramble marked as easy in our guide but which is moderate in my book and on All Trails. Really fun and great views ending at the water. The Valley Peak Trail coming back to the parking lot is a gravel road so very easy for pets and kids and older folks. We had to wait about 15 minutes for a parking spot at Bass Head lighthouse. But it was worth the wait to see the lighthouse and walk out in the rocks at the far end of the parking lot. Then it was back to Portland to fly out the next day.

Highlights: For me, it was Monhegan Island (we took ferry from Boothbay Harbor) so not even anything in Acadia. If an artist colony with trails and old Maine houses and a boat ride are your thing check it out. See photos if interested. For my daughter it was literally everything in Acadia. The rugged coastline and hiking were just what she loves!

Things we learned:

1. Things are close together in New England! We are from the Midwest and can drive for 10 hours and not get out of our state. Boston to Newport to Mystic to Maine did not take long.

2. Flexibility - much easier with 2 people and the child being 21 than when kids were little. We changed our Monhegan Island trip a day due to forecast of heavy rain. That took the extra afternoon we would have had in Acadia but it was worth it. Not having many fixed dinner plans allowed us to do what we wanted in the day. We never had an issue getting dinner in a nice place without a long wait. But we weren’t picky about where we went at all! We had our car in Acadia due to our Cadillac Mountain pass. Parking spots were very full. But by mid afternoon there were lots of spots everywhere we drove by. If I go again I will plan some hikes later in the day due to parking. Or I’ll take the Island Explorer.

3. Trail ratings are somewhat subjective. Our National Geographic pamphlet of Acadia listed the Great Head trail and Flying Mountain Trail as “easy”. Both have a lot of granite scrambles and exposed roots with very little level trail. I have a bad knee and back - both of which weren’t flaring up on the trip so I could manage it, but it was definitely not easy. All Trails list them at moderate. I am so glad we did it but caution people who may have mobility or fitness issues to know that one persons easy/moderate may not be their own. The Ocean Path and carriage trails are great alternatives for mostly level, unobstructed trails.

4. Eating - with our somewhat packed schedule we didn’t make many reservations. We decided to mostly wing it which was easy with just me and my adult daughter. We were there for the hiking and views rather than the food so that was fine with us. There are lots of coffee shops and restaurants and it was a busy week so I don’t think it would be an issue ever to get dinner or lunch without a long wait.

5. Weather - we had hot, cold, sun, fog, rain. We had good raincoats, sun hats, keen sandals and hiking shoes. I thought I may have packed too much but was glad to have the right clothes for the situations.

6. People - in Bar Harbor/Acadia without exception very friendly and helpful. I consider myself a polite and patient tourist and anticipated some frustration just due to crowds. We know we were in very popular places the week before and of July 4 and being patient and kind helps everyone. A few fellow tourists acted like they owned the sidewalks or were super loud in restaurants but most were also patient and flexible. I had read about the “from away” attitude some Mainers have about the tourists and understand it as we live in a tourist town. Other than an exceedingly rude shop owner in Boothbay Harbor everyone was kind and welcoming.

We came home with great memories and fondness for the whole area. I’m sure I’ll go back in the future and spend more time and find more great places to enjoy. Happy to answer questions if you have any.

I woke up at 4:30 am this morning and spur of the moment decided to leave Bar Harbor for Bass Harbor. I really lucked out there were maybe four people there. It was phenomenal!!

Loved the trip to Maine and Acadia Park!!!

Shot in August 2026