The Maine Coast Road Trip: Route 1 from Kittery to Lubec

US Route 1 runs from Key West, Florida to Fort Kent, Maine. The Maine stretch is 527 miles, and the coastal portion from Kittery to Lubec is the one people come for. It is not a fast road. It was not designed to be. Route 1 threads through downtowns, crosses drawbridges, and doubles as Main Street in a dozen towns. That is the point. If you want speed, take I-95. If you want Maine, take Route 1.

The honest version of this trip is a week. Seven days minimum. You can do it in three if you skip most of it, but then you have not really done it. Here is how to break it into five segments, what to see in each, and where to slow down.

Overview: The Five Segments

The farther north you drive, the fewer people you will see. Traffic thins noticeably past Ellsworth. By the time you hit Machias, you are in a different Maine than the one on postcards.

Segment 1: Kittery to Portland (50 miles)

This is the most tourist-heavy stretch of Route 1, and it is still worth your time. You cross into Maine at the Piscataqua River bridge and immediately hit Kittery, which is essentially a 2-mile-long outlet mall. Some people love it. Skip it unless you need boots.

The real start of the trip is the York coast, about 10 minutes north.

York

Long Sands Beach runs for almost two miles along Route 1A, parallel to Route 1. Take 1A. The slight detour adds five minutes and puts the ocean directly on your right. Short Sands is the next cove up, smaller and surrounded by the small commercial district of York Beach.

Park in York Beach and walk to Nubble Light, one of the most photographed lighthouses in America. The light itself sits on a small rock island 100 yards offshore. You cannot walk to it. The view is from Sohier Park on the mainland.

Ogunquit

Ogunquit is the first town on the coast that feels like a proper destination. The Marginal Way is a 1.25-mile paved cliff walk from downtown Ogunquit to Perkins Cove. Do it. Start from the north end (the downtown end) because parking is easier and the walk gets more scenic as you go. Perkins Cove has lobster rolls and a pedestrian drawbridge that tourists love to photograph.

Ogunquit Beach is 3 miles of white sand, which is unusual for Maine. Most Maine beaches are pebble or coarse sand. Ogunquit is the exception.

Kennebunkport

Kennebunkport is where Route 1 pulls slightly inland. To see it properly, turn off onto Route 9 or Ocean Avenue. The Bush family compound at Walker’s Point is visible from the road. You cannot visit, but you can pull off at the Walker’s Point overlook for a photo.

Dock Square in the middle of Kennebunkport is the commercial heart. It is touristy. It is also genuinely pretty. Goose Rocks Beach and Gooch’s Beach are both excellent if you have beach time.

Old Orchard Beach

Old Orchard Beach is a 7-mile sand beach with a pier, carnival rides, and French-Canadian tourists speaking Quebecois. It feels like a New Jersey boardwalk that accidentally ended up in Maine. If you have kids, stop. If you do not, keep driving.

Portland

Portland is the food capital of New England and a legitimate reason to stop for a full day. The Old Port is the cobblestone district by the water. Commercial Street runs along the working waterfront. The East End neighborhood has the best walking and the Eastern Promenade, a mile of oceanfront park with a city skyline at one end and Casco Bay at the other.

Dinner reservations at Fore Street, Eventide, or Drifters Wife need to be made in advance. Walk-in options are abundant but less famous. Duckfat is walk-in only and has the best fries in New England.

Segment 2: Portland to Wiscasset (40 miles)

This stretch has some of the best short detours on the whole route. Plan to get off Route 1 a lot.

Portland Head Light and Cape Elizabeth

Before leaving the Portland area, take the 15-minute detour to Portland Head Light at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. Built in 1791, it is the oldest lighthouse in Maine and possibly the most photographed in the country. The park is free. Park in the main lot and walk the coastal paths.

Freeport

Freeport is home to the LL Bean flagship store, which is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You do not have to buy anything to appreciate how thorough this place is. Just north of town, Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park has easy coastal trails along Casco Bay with views of Googins Island and nesting ospreys. Worth the 10-minute detour.

The Harpswell and Phippsburg peninsulas

This is where Route 1 starts to cut corners, and you have to decide how much of the coast you want to actually see. Below Route 1, a series of fingered peninsulas jut south into the ocean. Harpswell, Phippsburg, and Georgetown each end in fishing villages and quiet beaches.

Popham Beach State Park on the Phippsburg peninsula is one of the finest beaches in New England. A 3-mile stretch of sand at the mouth of the Kennebec River, with a tidal sandbar you can walk to a small island at low tide. Reid State Park on the next peninsula over (Georgetown) has two sand beaches separated by a granite outcrop. Pick one. Both are a 25-minute detour from Route 1.

Bath

Bath is the shipbuilding town. Bath Iron Works is the largest private employer in Maine and builds destroyers for the US Navy. You can see the giant blue cranes from Route 1. The Maine Maritime Museum south of downtown is excellent if you like boats. If you do not, keep driving.

Wiscasset

Wiscasset bills itself as “the prettiest village in Maine.” It is a bold claim and a defensible one. Route 1 goes directly through downtown, which means every summer weekend creates a traffic jam. Red’s Eats is a tiny lobster roll shack on the main drag. The line is famously long. The lobster roll is famously good. Sprague’s Lobster, directly across the street, is almost as good with a fraction of the wait.

Segment 3: Wiscasset to Rockland (45 miles)

The midcoast is where lighthouses start stacking up. You could visit a different one every hour and not run out.

Damariscotta

Damariscotta sits at the head of a tidal river and is known for oysters. Pemaquid oysters are among the best in the country. Ask for them by name. Route 1 bypasses the downtown, but the short detour is essential.

From Damariscotta, take Route 130 south for 15 miles to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. This detour is the second-best on the entire Maine coast. The lighthouse sits on dramatic folded granite ledges that drop straight into the Atlantic. It is on the Maine state quarter for a reason. Budget two hours round trip from Route 1.

Boothbay Harbor

Boothbay Harbor is another south-of-Route 1 detour, about 30 minutes one way on Route 27. It is one of the most picturesque working harbors in Maine, with a footbridge across the harbor that has been there since 1901. The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens just outside town are the largest botanical gardens in New England and genuinely worth a half day. The holiday light show in November and December (Gardens Aglow) draws people from across New England.

Skip this detour if you are tight on time. It doubles back.

Rockland

Rockland is the midcoast’s cultural anchor. Home to the Farnsworth Art Museum, which has the country’s best Wyeth family collection. The downtown has rebuilt itself over the last 20 years from a depressed fishing port into a genuine destination, without losing the fishing port underneath. Lobster boats unload directly onto the pier.

The Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse sits at the end of a nearly mile-long granite breakwater you can walk out on. The walk is bumpy (the blocks are not perfectly flat) but the lighthouse at the end is worth it. Low tide is easier. High tide can splash over the sides.

Marshall Point Lighthouse in Port Clyde, 15 miles south of Rockland, is where Forrest Gump ended his run. The long wooden walkway out to the tower is the iconic shot.

Segment 4: Rockland to Bar Harbor (75 miles)

This is the midcoast pastoral stretch. Rolling hills, saltwater farms, and villages that look carefully preserved because they are. Plan at least two days. This section has more good small towns than any other.

Camden and Rockport

Camden might be the prettiest harbor town on the east coast. Sailing schooners (windjammers) dock right downtown. The harbor is tight and mountainous, hemmed in by Mount Battie and Mount Megunticook. Drive to the top of Mount Battie via the auto road in Camden Hills State Park. The view from the summit tower looks straight down on the harbor. Take a short hike first if you have the time. The Mount Battie Trail from the base is 1.8 miles round trip.

Rockport, the next town over, is quieter and worth a 20-minute walk through Marine Park. Andre the Seal has a statue there. Long story.

Belfast and Searsport

Belfast is small, artsy, and underrated. The downtown has more working painters per capita than almost any town in New England. Good bookstores. A harbor walk. Searsport, the next town, was once “the town that built half of America’s deep-water shipping.” The Penobscot Marine Museum there is excellent and almost never crowded.

The Blue Hill Peninsula

Here is where Route 1 makes its big decision. The main road continues straight to Bar Harbor. But if you turn right at Bucksport and take Route 175/15, you drop onto the Blue Hill peninsula, which contains Castine (a former capital, now a picture-perfect college town), Stonington (a working lobstering village at the very end of Deer Isle), and Deer Isle itself.

The Deer Isle bridge is a suspension bridge that feels wildly out of scale for the traffic it carries. Crossing it is one of the moments of the trip.

Ellsworth and Bar Harbor

Ellsworth is the junction town. Big-box stores, chain hotels, and the last Walmart for the next 100 miles. Use it as a supply stop.

Bar Harbor sits on Mount Desert Island next to Acadia National Park. It is the most visited town in Maine by a large margin. In July and August it is slammed. In June and September it is merely busy. In October the foliage is spectacular and the crowds have thinned by about 60 percent.

Plan two full days minimum for Acadia. Three is better. Cadillac Mountain, Park Loop Road, Jordan Pond, Thunder Hole, Sand Beach, the Beehive. You will not see it all. That is fine.

Segment 5: Bar Harbor to Lubec (95 miles)

This is the Down East stretch. The section most visitors skip. Which is exactly why you should drive it.

Schoodic Point

Schoodic Point is the only piece of Acadia National Park on the mainland, across Frenchman Bay from Mount Desert Island. One-way road loop around a peninsula. Dramatic granite ledges getting pounded by surf. Barely anyone there, even in August. Go.

Winter Harbor, Milbridge, Machias

These are working towns. Fishing towns. Not set-decorated for tourists. The restaurants are fine, not famous. The motels are clean and cheap. The views are unedited.

Blueberries grow wild across the Down East barrens. If you drive this stretch in late July or early August, you will pass fields of low-bush blueberries with rakers bent over pulling fruit. You can buy a quart at a roadside stand for less than a bottle of water costs in Bar Harbor.

Cobscook Bay

Cobscook Bay State Park is quiet, wooded, and pressed up against a tidal bay with 24-foot tides. The park has the best camping on the Down East coast. Loons call at night. The campground is full only on the biggest summer holiday weekends. Every other time, you can show up and get a site.

The Cutler Coast public land preserve has some of the most dramatic sea cliffs in Maine. The coastal trail is a rugged 4 to 10 mile hike with bluff-top views of the Bay of Fundy. If you are willing to hike, this is the best stop on Down East.

Lubec and West Quoddy Head

Lubec is the easternmost town in the continental United States. About 1,300 residents. The bridge to Campobello Island in Canada leaves from right downtown. West Quoddy Head Lighthouse at Quoddy Head State Park is the candy-striped red and white beacon that marks the absolute easternmost point in the country. The light station grounds are open daily; the tower itself is not typically open to visitors, but the coastal trails are.

Stand at the point at sunrise. Before any other American sees the sun, you have.

Eastport

Eastport is across a bay from Lubec. As the crow flies, about 3 miles. By road, 40 miles. That is Down East logistics. Eastport claims the deepest natural harbor on the east coast. The old downtown is a compact set of brick buildings with art galleries and one of the best small bakeries in Maine (Moose Island Bakery).

How Many Days Do You Need?

Absolute minimum: 5 days. You will skip a lot. Plan to do Portland to Bar Harbor and little else. Lubec will not happen.

Comfortable: 7 days. One full day Portland. One day Boothbay/Pemaquid. One day Camden/Rockland. Two days Acadia. One day Down East to Lubec. One travel/buffer day.

Unhurried: 10 days. Now you can take the Blue Hill peninsula detour, spend a full day at Pemaquid, do Acadia right, and still have time to sit on a porch in Lubec for an afternoon.

Best Time of Year

June: Cool, occasionally foggy, everything is open, crowds are thin. The best trade-off month.

July and August: Warmest water, all attractions open, heavy traffic, highest lodging prices, Wiscasset becomes a parking lot. Avoid July 4th weekend specifically.

September: Warm days, cool nights, crowds start thinning after Labor Day. Arguably the best month if you can handle slightly earlier sunsets.

October: Foliage peaks inland and works its way to the coast late in the month. Thin crowds. Many restaurants and inns start closing after Columbus Day. Down East is particularly empty.

November through April: Much of the coast is closed. Bar Harbor is a ghost town. Only attempt if you want solitude and do not mind that most restaurants are shuttered.

Where to Stay

Budget: State park campgrounds. Sebago Lake, Camden Hills, Lamoine, and Cobscook Bay are all good. Reserve through CampWithME.

Mid-range: Classic Maine inns. Grey Havens Inn in Georgetown, The Inn at Isle au Haut, the Blue Hill Inn.

High-end: Press Hotel in Portland, Samoset Resort in Rockport, Bar Harbor Inn.

Spread out. Do not make Bar Harbor your base for the whole trip. It is too far from the southern and midcoast sections. Plan at least three different lodging stops: somewhere in the York/Ogunquit area, Rockland or Camden, and Bar Harbor or Lubec.

Image Credits

• Portland Old Port (hero): Bd2media, CC-BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Kennebunkport Dock Square: Messerjdx, CC-BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Bar Harbor Waterfront: Tichnor Brothers, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
• Marginal Way, Ogunquit: Giorgio Galeotti, CC-BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• West Quoddy Head Light: Giorgio Galeotti, CC-BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Camden Harbor (Windjammer): Tichnor Brothers, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons