Travelling Maine with a Campervan: Acadia National Park

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Acadia National Park in coastal Maine is one of the most visited parks in the United States, and welcomes more than two million visitors each year. Acadia National Park doesn’t wholly encompass Mount Desert Island, which took a bit of getting used to. We found ourselves driving through towns with private houses on our way from one part of the park to the other.

Some of the wealthy summer visitors in the area petitioned the President to establish Mount Desert Island as a national park to preserve its wild nature. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated 11,000 acres and had a hand in designing and building the numerous miles of carriage roads, bridges, and highways. The park, then named Lafayette National Park, was established in 1916 and now encompasses more than 49,000 acres.

We stayed at each of the three campgrounds in Acadia National Park during our stay. Originally, we had booked our whole trip at Seawall Campground, thinking that it would be very close to the ocean. The campground was in the forest, and all the sites were rather dark and shaded by tall trees, and my mom didn’t like it at all. After one or two nights, we were lucky enough switch to the Blackwoods Campground. It was more open, but still rather dark and secluded in the forest. Above is a working water tap at the Seawall Campground.
Our first hike was just a short, relatively flat one near the Nature Center and Wild Gardens of Acadia on the eastern side of the island.

Just a few minutes’ walk from our campsite in the Blackwoods Campground on the southeast part of Mount Desert Island was a rocky cliff and the wild Atlantic Ocean.

On our first full day at Acadia National Park, we woke up early and drove up Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the east coast of the United States with an elevation of 466m (1530 ft). The road was winding and we had to pass under some of the low but picturesque carriage road bridges, but we were able to manage in our 25-ft RV.  Thankfully we got there before the crowds, because there isn’t much parking for big rigs up on top of the mountain. We spent about an hour or so tagging onto the Hawk Watch, where some pretty serious birdwatchers set up camp (campchairs, snacks, drinks, warm clothes, and very good binoculars) and spend the morning with their eyes glued to the horizon. We didn’t spot the bald eagles I was eager to see, but we did see the above snake! Somehow it had gotten to the top of a chilly, windswept mountain and was sunning itself on a rock.

We passed by about a dozen brave cyclists pedal up Cadillac Mountain, but we would be wary of doing that with the amount of traffic using the roads – and this was not even during the high season! Hikers can also climb the mountain with their own legpower.

There were numerous cormorants diving for fish and then sunning themselves on the rocky shore.

I finally got those convertible hiking pants that unzip into shorts, and I guess unsurprisingly, they were very convenient. It was chilly in the mornings and on the windy cliffsides but warm in the afternoon sun. I will definitely bring these next time I go hiking!

We parked the camper across the road at an empty parking lot, made ourselves cups of tea, and then wandered over to the shore, where the tide was slowly coming in. We found a raft to sit on and watched the birds and boats while the sun started to set.

I bought a bunch of these old illustrated art postcards to send to friends and family.

One of the few hikes we completed was the short hike around Jordan Pond.

Jordan Pond is ringed with a narrow pathway that navigates the forest floor, the lakeshore, and boulders. Since the path is so narrow, the guidebooks recommended hiking the path counterclockwise – this prevents hikers from stepping off the path to let others pass. 

After our hike, we decided to stop at Jordan House for some tea and popovers. We ended up staying for lunch, and here is the lobster roll that my mom ordered, a luscious mixture of fresh lobster meat and mayonnaise served in a toasted buttered brioche roll and served alongside a tasty sprouted grain salad.

My parents and I ordered the famous Jordan House popovers. Later in Bar Harbor, they bought Ryan a popover pan for Christmas.

My dad ordered the BLTT – the bacon, lettuce, tomato, and turkey sandwich, also served with the tasty grain salad.

To finish it all off, we shared a bowl of the house-made vanilla ice cream topped with sea salt caramel sauce. The vanilla ice cream was rich and creamy and had flecks of vanilla seeds in it, so you know it was the real deal! Apparently Maine is famous for homemade ice creams, and we were not disappointed!

During low tide, we could inspect the tidal pools for sea life. We mostly found periwinkles, but the plant life was so vibrantly coloured it more than made up for the lack of crabs and other interesting animals.

My dad spent a few hours fishing off this rock on the Ship Harbor trail.

We took the free Island Explorer bus to Sand Beach. Everyone who enters the park has to have a park entrance pass; these fees help fund the free Park Explorer bus that provides regular service throughout Mount Desert Island. The buses are also funded by L.L. Bean, the famous outdoor retail company. The main store is located in Freeport, Maine, and we visited it on our way to Acadia National Park. Apparently this flagship store is open 24/7 and has only closed twice in its history – once when JFK was shot, and the second was when the recent CEO passed away. We were there justa few days after the CEO passed away, and the staff told my dad that they had to frantically look for chains and locks with which to lock the doors!

Sand Beach is made up of shell fragments, and is really the only true beach on Mount Desert Island. I read in the guidebooks that after a fierce storm that moves some of the sand, a shipwreck can be seen under these sand dunes. My parents and I parked our RV at Otter Point and hiked along the short, past Thunder Hole, to Sand Beach. When we were done soaking our feet in the seawater, we took the Island Explorer bus back to where we parked our RV. Many of the roads are old and narrow, so some are only open to one-way traffic.

Here we passed Thunder Hole, which is a narrow inlet where waves thunder and crash and spew visitors with seawater when the tide is right. Acadia National Park publishes monthly events calendars that also have the tide charts, so visitors can properly time when they visit certain sites and trails.

The last few nights, we spent in the brand new Schoodic Woods Campground. It had just opened the month before, and everything was fresh and lovely and open. The Schoodic Woods Campground is located on the Schoodic Peninsula, the only part of Acadia National Park that is on the mainland. It is much more secluded than other parts of the park, but no less beautiful.

Schoodic Woods Campground had several campsites, and everything was brand new and smelled like fresh cut wood. When exploring Schoodic Peninsula, don’t get stuck and be forced to turn around like we did – remember that the road is only one-way and only open for cars and the Island Explorer buses. We did a short hike along the Anvil and Alder Trails, but the high point for us was the wild and rocky Schoodic Point, my mom’s favourite part of Acadia National Park.

On the bus ride around Schoodic Peninsula, we passed through Winter Harbor, a small town that still has an open five-and-dime.

Our bus driver, a local, gave us a running commentary as we drove along Schoodic Peninsula. We drove past the last working sardine cannery in the United States, which had closed and is now a lobster cannery. He also told us stories about how hard it is to get lobster fishing licenses, but because they want to keep lobster fishing in the community, local high schoolers can more easily get their apprenticeships and licences. Maine has more than 5,000 licensed lobstermen, and they have caught as many as 100 million pounds of lobster annually. The average lobster served in a Maine restaurant is one pound to one pound and a quarter; it takes a lobster anywhere from four to seven years to grow to that size. Lobsters are still a delicacy throughout the world, and many lobster suppliers will ship tens of thousands of lobsters to England and France for the holidays, where taking the place of the North American roast turkey, they are eaten for Christmas dinner.

It was just a week-long trip, but my parents and I thoroughly enjoyed Acadia National Park. Luckily for me I get to tag along, and luckily for them, I was the driver for most of the trip.