Five Best Coastal Towns to Visit in Maine

If you’ve read my travel posts in the past, you know that Maine is one of my favorite places in the world. Chris and I constantly talk about how much we want to own a summer home there in the future (because we definitely don’t want to deal with those winters!). Now that I’m back to travel blogging, I thought it was only appropriate to kick off my travel posts with more Maine talk! One of my favorite parts of our Maine babymoon was visiting all the of the adorable coastal towns, so today I wanted to share five of my favorite spots with you.

Kennebunkport
Kennebunkport is the town that made me fall in love with the Maine coast. We first visited Kennebunkport on our fall colors cruise in 2014, and I knew we had to go back. Kennebunkport is full of adorable shops, historic mansions, gorgeous views, and amazing lobster rolls at The Clam Shack. If you want to swim, there are also several beautiful beaches to visit.

Bar Harbor
Bar Harbor is the gateway to one of my favorite national parks: Acadia National Park. Like with Kennebunkport, we first visited Acadia on our fall color cruise, and we loved it so much we knew we had to go back! Bar Harbor itself is special too. We loved walking along the water, going on a lobster boat cruise, and dining at the many delicious restaurants. You must stop for ice cream at Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream and grab some wild Maine blueberry muffins at Jordan’s Restaurant.

Camden
Camden is known for gourmet dining and the gorgeous Penobscot Bay. One of my favorite memories from our babymoon was our sunset cruise on the Penobscot Bay: it was absolutely stunning! Camden Hills State Park, a short drive outside the city, is also worth a visit. Mt. Battie (inside the park) offers gorgeous panoramic views of Penobscot Bay.

Boothbay Harbor
Boothbay Harbor stole my heart. It was the cutest little town with the most beautiful, clear water. It might just be a top contender for that vacation home of ours. I loved walking the Footbridge and just exploring all the fun shops along the water. It was absolutely charming and felt a bit like going back in time. I can’t wait to go back!

York
I included York on my list because it’s one of the easiest towns to get to from other states if you are driving. York is located on the southern tip of Maine and is full of fantastic beaches and gorgeous mansions. My favorite part of York, though, was the Cape Neddick Light (most commonly referred to as the Nubble Light)—one of the most photographed lighthouses in Maine.

This is just a taste of some of my favorite places in Maine! I'll be sharing more in-depth guides in the future.
P.S-If you know me, you know why all of the photos I showed y'all today are of the water and not the towns themselves-the water is my favorite part!

Other Maine Babymoon Posts:

Our Trip to Maine: By the Numbers
Five Reasons You Should Visit Maine

Quick Thoughts: Our Maine Babymoon

Other Maine Posts:

Fall Color Cruise: Portland and Kennebunkport, Maine

Fall Color Cruise: Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

Have you been to Maine? What was your favorite town?

Our Trip to Maine By the Numbers

I’ve always wanted to do a by the numbers post for one of our trips and have just never gotten around to it! Before I get into all my detailed posts about our babymoon, I thought it would be fun to break down our vacation a little bit.

6 full days
When I say full, I mean full. We did so much on this trip, and I can’t wait to share all the details!

9 lighthouses seen
I actually tried to limit going out of the way to see lighthouses because there were so many other things to see, but we still managed to see nine, and I’m not complaining!

3 boat tours
At one point in our planning, I turned to Chris and asked if he would hate it if we ended up doing three boat tours. Thankfully, he agreed because we loved all three of them! They were all different, and I’m super excited to tell y’all about them.

2.5 hours
The amount of time we waited for a lobster roll at Red’s Eats. You’ll have to wait for my post on it to hear all of my feelings on that, but it was an interesting experience!

3 states visited
We flew into Boston and spent some time in Gloucester and Rockport before driving on to Maine. On our way back, we spent the night in Kittery, Maine, which also gave us the chance to explore Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

8 miles hiked
I’m only counting our two big hikes in this number, and boy, were they memorable! I love hiking, but hiking pregnant was a whole new experience. The views were completely worth it, though!

4 celebrations
I sure do love traveling on our Super Week. It’s so fun to celebrate all of our big occasions in a new place! Christopher’s birthday was the day before we left, but we celebrated it along with my birthday and our eighth wedding anniversary on our trip! Of course, we also celebrated our last big trip before baby boy’s arrival!

3 days spent at Acadia National Park 
I must say I love that you have buy a seven-day pass for Acadia because it gave us a chance to split up our time there and see as much as possible!

2 blueberry lemonades ordered
This is where I made a mistake, friends. I didn’t discover blueberry lemonade until nearly the end of our trip, so I missed out on several days of having this amazing drink. It’s one of the best lemonade combinations I’ve ever had, and I sure wouldn’t mind getting a few gallons shipped to me in Texas!

Countless amounts of lobster eaten
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I will usually eat crab over lobster any day. Of course, that’s not the case with fresh Maine lobster. At the restaurant we went to for my birthday, I had lobster and corn chowder, lobster cakes, and lobster fettucine alfredo all in one meal. It’s just that good.

Other Maine Babymoon Posts:

Five Reasons You Should Visit Maine

Quick Thoughts: Our Maine Babymoon

Other Maine Posts:

Fall Color Cruise: Portland and Kennebunkport, Maine

Fall Color Cruise: Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

Five Reasons You Should Visit Maine

Our trip to Maine was a dream. I loved every moment of exploring the coast, and I could have been happy spending another month in the area. Before I get into all the details of our trip, I wanted to share five reasons why I think everyone should visit Maine.

Lobster
Let me let y’all in on a little secret: I’m usually not the biggest fan of lobster. I prefer crab to lobster any day, and I think lobster tastes like whatever sauce is made with it (most of the time butter). That’s not the case with East Coast lobster, especially Maine lobster. It’s sweet and absolutely delicious. For one meal, I had lobster cakes, lobster fettuccini alfredo, and lobster and corn clam chowder. I still prefer warm lobster to cold lobster, so lobster rolls are hit or miss for me, but lobster is definitely a must when you’re in Maine!

Rocky Coastline
We spent most of the time heading up to Bar Harbor on Coastal Highway 1, and it was simply breathtaking. I might have convinced Chris we had to do three boat tours just so I could see the coastline from the water. It’s just that beautiful.

Maine Blueberries
I feel the same way about blueberries as I do lobster. I don’t hate them, but they are by far my least favorite berry. I also don’t like anything made with them (blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, etc). Maine blueberries are a completely different variety, and boy are they good! I even liked the blueberry muffins I tried, but my absolute favorite was fresh Maine blueberry lemonade! Even Chris, who is not the biggest lemonade fan, loved it (though his favorite was the Maine blueberry soda). Now I just need to figure out a way for them to ship some to Texas!

All the Cute Small Towns
There is nothing cuter than coastal towns, and Maine is full of them! When I was working on my list of towns to visit, I had such a hard time narrowing down where to go. We had so much fun walking (and driving) through all the adorable downtowns and stopping at all the interesting little shops.

Lighthouses
If you’ve read any of the posts from our Lake Michigan Circle Tour, you know Chris and I love lighthouses. I thought we wouldn’t be able to see many lighthouses on this trip, but there were so many great ones, we ended up seeing more than we planned! I’ll be sharing exactly how many in my Maine by the numbers post next week, but I must say those beautiful lighthouses made the trip even more special for us!

Have you been to Maine? What was your favorite part?

Quick Thoughts: Our Maine Babymoon

Hello, friends! We are back from our Maine babymoon/birthday/anniversary trip! As many of you know, I felt a lot of pressure in deciding where we would go on this trip. There’s something about it being our last big trip before baby is born that made me want to make it as fun of a trip as possible. I can tell y’all I feel like we succeeded for sure. Chris had to push me a little to keep up with our normal pace, but we spent the week enjoying gorgeous weather, amazing ocean views paired with Maine’s striking rugged coastline, exploring the cutest small towns, and indulging on some of the best seafood we’ve ever had! I’m so excited to share this trip with y’all! I’m going to do something a little different this time and share at least part of the trip as soon as I can. I just really can’t wait to start sharing, so I will hopefully have my first post ready for Wednesday!

Fall Foliage Cruise: Bar Harbor, Maine and Acadia National Park

Our second stop on our fall foliage cruise was Bar Harbor, Maine. Maine has always been high on my list to visit so I was excited that our itinerary included two cities. We got on an early tender and had some time to kill before our tour to Acadia National Park so we wandered around Bar Harbor. They have a cute Main Street close to the town pier (where the tenders dock) so we shopped and explored.

We booked our tour to Acadia National Park through Acadia National Park Tours, and it was a great way to see the park in a short amount of time. We visited a lookout for Cadillac Mountain, Thunder Hole, and Sieur De Monts Spring with a 20-minute stop at each place.

Our tour guide was informative, with plenty of interesting anecdotes about Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. I loved the drive over to Acadia National Park, but the park itself was absolutely beautiful, especially with the gorgeous fall colors. Chris and I took advantage of our time there, climbing to the highest peaks to get the best views and crawling all over rocks to get as close to the ocean as we could without falling.

After our tour, we explored Bar Harbor some more, stopping by a restaurant for another lobster roll (which wasn’t nearly as good as the one we had in Kennepunkport). After spending time in both Portland and Bar Harbor, Chris and I couldn’t stop talking about how much we enjoyed Maine. We definitely want to go back and devote a week to exploring the state, especially in the summer or fall.

Want to catch up on our fall foliage cruise? 

Quick Thoughts 

Cruise Ship Review: Brilliance of the Seas 

Quick Trip: 24 Hours in Boston

Portland and Kennebunkport, Maine 

Halifax and Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia

Fall Foliage Cruise: Portland and Kennebunkport, Maine

Our first stop on our fall foliage cruise was Portland. Portland was one of the ports that made me pick this cruise itinerary. I had Maine on my mind and really wanted to make the trip over to Kennebunkport. Since driving from Portland to Kennebunkport takes about 45 minutes, we decided to take a bus tour.

View of Portland from our balcony

We woke up at the crack of dawn on our first full day on the cruise to board the bus. Our bus tour first took us all over Portland. Portland had a great atmosphere—I loved the Arts District and the beautiful views from the Old Port. Even though Portland is Maine’s largest city, it had more of a large-town feel. Other than the harsh winters, I think it would be a fun place to live.

After seeing Portland, we headed to one of my favorite stops of the day—the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. What a beautiful lighthouse in a gorgeous setting! I could have sat there all day, watching the waves crash up to the shoreline below the lighthouse. It was absolutely picturesque.

Then, we headed off to the cities of Kennebunk and Kennebunkport (those are two cities next to each other. I didn’t realize there was city called Kennebunk until our tour guide mentioned we would be stopping there.) Once we got to Kennebunkport, all Chris and I could talk about was how great it would be to spend a week relaxing there.

When we got off the bus, the first thing we had to do was eat at the Clam Shack. Here’s the thing: I am not a huge fan of lobster rolls so I knew if I was going to try one in Maine, I was going to get it at a place that has won tons of awards for their lobster rolls and scored an endorsement from Barbara Bush. My lobster roll was worth every cent…and I would have paid double for it; it was that good. I would go back to Kennebunkport just to eat more lobster rolls. 

After we were full and very happy, we walked around the adorable town. It was a perfect day to visit the shops and look at the many Victorian houses in the area. We even got to drive by the Bush residence on our way back. It was the perfect start to our fall vacation, and I would go back in a heartbeat, preferably in the summer or fall. 

The Bush Residence