Looking for a unique holiday for your family? Want to teach your kids about our amazing natural world and environmental responsibility first-hand? Do you like hiking, biking, and lobsters? Look no further than beautiful Maine.
A recent list published by National Geographic Traveler featured Maine as one of the “places doing well” for its authenticity and stewardship. That’s especially true, noted the report, the further north you go. One such destination is Mount Desert Island, home to Bar Harbor and the 46,000 acres of Acadia National Park.
Rainer Jenss, former publisher of National Geographic Kids, just lived out a life-long dream to take a year off and travel the world with his wife, Carol, and sons, Tyler, 11, and Stefan, 8. After the first two months and 20 states, he published his U.S. Top 10 List. The choice for the family’s “favorite national park” was Acadia.
Acadia National Park lies within the third largest island on the East Coast and has 24 mountain peaks. That grand juxtaposition of where the mountains meet the sea gives Acadia its uniqueness and accounts for why travelers consistently name it one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Yet, for families, it’s accessible and easy to manage. As Rainer said, it has the scenery, wildlife, and hiking trails that rank it among our nation’s greatest national parks plus “terrific accommodations and food to boot.”
“I’ve never been so tired in my life”
For the Jenss’ boys, hiking and biking were among Acadia’s major attractions. The park has 130 miles of hiking trails and 57 miles of car-free carriage roads that wind among glacial lakes and around spruce-covered mountains. Terrain for hiking can be as easy as the Ship Harbor figure-eight loop to the ocean or as challenging as climbing Beech Mountain to a fire lookout with spectacular 360-degree views.
Some hikes, such as the one to Acadia Mountain, offer a bonus. You can conclude your descent with sun-bathing on lakeside granite promontories. (Jumping into the lake is optional for anyone with energy left.)
Opening our eyes to sights unseen
An entrance pass to the park costs $20 and admits one vehicle for seven days. But it’s also a pass for a lot of entertainment. Park rangers host daily walks, talks, amphitheatre programs, and cruises. Adults become as engaged as the kids as they learn about birds of prey, insects in a stream, and the stars over Sand Beach.
Most programs are free, although some do require nominal fees; many are customized for different age groups. Families can easily split up — while Dad takes the kids to look for frogs and tadpoles during “A Frog’s Life,” Mom and the older kids can get a lesson on photographing wildflowers.
Free bus service around the island makes this easy to manage and provides another opportunity for a lesson about conservation and the benefits of clean propane-powered public transportation. The buses carry visitors not only to hiking trails, carriage roads, and island beaches, but also to in-town shops and restaurants.
New perspectives, deeper insights
Every island deserves to be seen from the perspective of the ocean, and Mount Desert Island is no exception. There are kayaking excursions, whaling trips, and tours by sailboat, as well as nature cruises.
One of the best is the Dive-In Theatre, in which kids watch by video as Diver Ed explores the ocean floor. He then returns with a bag of sea urchins, sea stars, hermit crabs lobsters, and wonderfully slimy sea cucumbers for the hands-on experience of his passengers.
Mount Desert Island also has a natural history museum, whale museum, and oceanarium. Jaylene Roths, a resident of Bar Harbor, emphasizes how fortunate her daughters, Grace, 7, and Cecelia, 2, are to be surrounded by the natural world, but that, even for them, the museums and touch tanks “take the girls’ backyard experiences one step further: They see how porcupine quills are attached, what seal skeletons look like, and where the rabbit paths lead.”
Where to stay
Acadia National Park has two beautiful wooded campgrounds, Blackwoods and Seawall, both within a 10-minute walk of the ocean. The island’s villages, especially Bar Harbor, also offer a wide range of motels, oceanfront hotels, and B&Bs. Many, like the Jenss family, prefer to rent a cottage so that every meal doesn’t have to be in a restaurant.
A particularly exciting “all-inclusive” option is College of the Atlantic’s Family Nature Camp, an accredited six-day program presented by experienced teachers and naturalists that combines field trips, boat cruises, ecology hikes, and whale watches. The program is offered on College of the Atlantic’s stunning 35-acre waterfront campus in Bar Harbor, where families stay in suites in student housing with common rooms and kitchens. Meals are included. For 2010, COA is offering a 10% discount for the first three weeks of camp in June, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t be part of the family discussion, too.
“Can we eat the blueberries?”
There are 60,000 acres of wild blueberries that grow naturally in Maine, so it’s no surprise that you can pick and eat them throughout Acadia National Park. That, after all, was what happened in Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal, which is a great memento from a trip to Mount Desert Island. (Ecomii eco-friendly tip: Minimize waste and bring home things that matter instead of impersonal souvenirs that were probably imported.) Families will also be tempted to sample blueberries in everything from pie to ice cream.
Lobster is also plentiful. Casual restaurants with picnic table seating, most often waterside, are called “lobster pounds,” in deference to the historic manner in which lobstermen impounded the crustaceans before bringing them to market. Attractively priced and far sweeter than lobsters in city restaurants and markets, they round out the picture of a “perfect Maine vacation.”
Planning a trip
Our Acadia is a great place to begin planning a trip, starting with when is the best time to go. This authoritative website also reviews a wide range of restaurants, features packing tips, gives ideas of what to do if it rains, and presents sample itineraries.
Not to be missed is a popular list of 22 great things to do with your kids in Acadia National Park.
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