July 4th Vacation: Aventures in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor

For July 4th, we took a 5 day weekend trip to Maine and Acadia National Park and managed to do it for under $200 total. After spending an evening in Portland, we drove to Acadia National Park and spent two days visiting the park and adjacent coastal town Bar Harbor. The time we spent in this area was by far the most exciting (and scenic) part of the trip. 

This is part of a trip report series, where I cover the var­i­ous parts of our five day vaca­tion includ­ing how we planned the whole thing for under $200 after using miles and points:

• July 4th Weekend Trip to Maine and Acadia for under $200: The Plan
• Port­land, Maine and Embassy Suites Portland Airport
• Adventures in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor
• Hol­i­day Inn Bar Har­bor Regency at Aca­dia National Park

The amazing part of the Acadia National Park visit was how well the unplanned turned out. We went with some vague idea of what we wanted to do, but hadn’t reserved or set in stone any trip activities aside from the transportation and hotels. We thought we’d hike a bit, see some scenery, try some kayaking, but left it all to be figured out on the spot. That said, everything came together very well, we managed to do pretty much everything we wanted to and our 2.5 days in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor quickly and seamlessly became filled with fun and adventure. The plan couldn’t have worked out better. This now tempts me to do go into future vacations with no hotel plan either. Only joking! Here is an overview of what we did over our 2.5 days:

• Beehive Trail to the Bowl
• Dinner at The Jordan Pond House
• Sunset at Cadillac Mountain
• Sea kayaking adventure
• Visit to Bar Island
• A show at Improv Acadia

The first full day was spent in Acadia National Park itself doing some hiking, having an early dinner and driving up to Cadillac Mountain to watch the sunset.  The entrance fee for the park is $20 per vehicle good for 7 days or $5 per person also good for 7 days. There are shuttles traveling all around the park on a schedule so a car is not even necessary, but we were glad we had one. It allowed us to traverse the park efficiently and move on to the next activity as soon as we’re ready.

Bar Harbor is the waterfront town adjacent to Acadia National Park. On our second day, we visited Bar Harbor for more activities. We started off with an ocean kayaking adventure and, afterwards, visited Bar Island by walking across a sandbar at low tide afterwards. We finished off the evening with a show at Improv Acadia and then headed off to Bangor.

Beehive Trail to the Bowl

A colleague of mine had recommended to me the Precipice Trail, a somewhat long strenuous trail that involves scrambling up rocks, walking over ledges with steep drops and climbing rungs. Unfortunately, the Precipice Trail was closed due to nesting peregrine falcons, but we were in luck! The Beehive, a similar, but shorter, trail that also involves scrambling and walking over narrow rock ledges with steep drops was open.

The Beehive is a super fun trail and not for the faint of heart at all! Although the climb is only 580 feet, the paths are quite narrow and you need to stay close to the rocks. Throughout the trail, we were rewarded with scenery and landscapes throughout the park. 

The trail leads to the Bowl, a lake in the middle of Acadia National Park. It’s a very welcome and peaceful resting area after the arduous climb in the hot sun. And the work we did to get there made the scenic lake that much more beautiful!

The water is impressively clear in the lake, though very cold, and people jump in for a swim. While the lake is beautiful, there are some small leeches by the rocks. Those that swim don’t seem too bothered by them, but they looked pretty scary on Game of Thrones so I stayed away. Not that I would jump in anyway…. the water was way too cold for that!

After the Bowl, the trail connects to a trail back to the road through the woods. No one needs to scramble down the rocks to get down. The trail through the woods is, of course, much easier, but the views are nowhere near as scenic. The trail ends at Sand Beach, which is the same beach we see the whole time going up the Beehive surrounded by forests. It’s a white sand beach inside Acadia National Park and quite popular for sunbathing.

Dinner at The Jordan Pond House

The same colleague had recommended The Jordan Pond House as a nice setting for dinner. The restaurant is located at The Jordan Pond inside the park and has a spectacular surrounding lookout onto a pond. There is indoor and outdoor seating, but the outdoor seating is only available for lunch served until 6. We definitely wanted to sit outside and enjoy the view so we optimized the dinner time by going at 5:45. Maine has long days during the summer and the sun doesn’t set until 8 pm so this would also allow us to go up to Cadillac Mountain after dinner.

It was certainly very pleasant to look out onto the water. In terms of the food itself, it is very reasonably priced, but we did not find the cooking to be too impressive. That was no issue as we went  for the view and experience and not for the culinary skills of the chef.

Sunset at Cadillac Mountain

Cadillac Mountain was apparently named before the car after the French Explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. It’s the highest point in the park and the views from it are beautiful, especially the sunset.

There is a road accessible by car that drives all the way up to the top of Cadillac Mountain. There are also trails leading to the top that one can hike, but we prefer to save our energies to go where you can’t get to by driving…. like up the Beehive trail.

Ocean Kayaking Adventure

One of the most fun things we did was taking an ocean kayaking tour around the islands. Our original plan was to rent kayaks and go ourselves, but apparently no one does that in Bar Harbor. You have to bring your own. We went on a kayak tour with Coastal Kayaking, only because the first place we came to was already full for the day. But luck was on our side again. We arrived at 1:15 and there happened to be a tour leaving at 2:00 pm. Our guide Carey was great and we had a relatively small group of only six kayaks of two persons each. We spent about three hours on the water and toured around two different islands: Bar Island and Porcupine Island.

Kayaking on the ocean water can be challenging at times, especially when the winds pick up and the currents are against you. That said, the best preparation and supplies you can bring is good teamwork. Fortunately, we have plenty of that and our coordinated rowing efforts allowed us to navigate the waters seamlessly.

Being out on the water on Bar Harbor is quite a pleasant experience so, even for those who don’t want to kayak, I’d at least recommend taking a nature cruise from the harbor. There are sails all day taking passengers around the islands. I did see Acadian Nature Cruises as an option, but I’m sure TripAdvisor will have plenty of reviews of the nature cruises.

Visit to Bar Island

Bar Island is connected by a sandbar to Bar Harbor. During high tide, the sandbar is submerged under about 10 feet of water and Bar Island becomes an island. When the tide is low, the sandbar appears and allows us to cross the narrow sea onto the island

The island itself is small so our visit mainly involved skipping rocks, watching life across the water on Bar Harbor and joking about survival strategies in case the tide comes up and leaves us stranded.

A show at Improv Acadia

On our search for kayak rentals, we opportunistically walked by Improv Acadia and noticed there was an improv show that night! Improv is a form of comedy performance that is entirely made up on the spot from audience suggestions. I haven’t seen that much improv myself, but Alex is a real improv aficionado. We decided we’ll give it a try (it’s not like Bar Harbor is teeming with clubs and nightlife), but set our expectations modestly… we thought that was reasonable given we’re from Manhattan, where improv standards are very high.

We were very pleasantly surprised! The owner actually studied and performed improv with Legend Del Close in Chicago and the cast was quite funny with excellent teamwork. Remember, good teamwork is everything! They had a very amusing Parisian cafe scene (suggestion from the audience) and improvised on the spot a musical called “The Mosquito Concerto” (again, suggestion from the audience). The 8 pm show we went to is very family friendly; there was certainly no swearing. It was definitely a good spontaneous choice for evening entertainment with our time very well spent.

Anyone else been to Acadia National Park? What are some of your favorite activities?

Check out the rest of the Maine and Acadia National Park trip report about our vacation to Maine and how we planned the whole thing for under $200 by using miles and points: 

• July 4th Weekend Trip to Maine and Acadia for under $200: The Plan
• Port­land, Maine and Embassy Suites Portland Airport
• Adventures in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor
• Hol­i­day Inn Bar Har­bor Regency at Aca­dia National Park

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