Weekend Coastal Maine Road Trip

I’ve been wanting to write a story on birding ecotours and conservation for over a year. When I finally placed the story with National Geographic (look for it in September), I had a great excuse to go on a puffin cruise—something else I’ve been wanting to do for eons. But it was already late July, and puffin tours are usually booked in advance for the summer. In a huge stroke of luck, I found a tour with availability in five days. The problem: I didn’t have much time to plan my trip. Knowing that even a hastily planned coastal Maine weekend road trip was better than none at all, I put together a rough itinerary. 

Day 1 of Coastal Maine Road Trip

York

My husband, Floren, and I left early on a Saturday from our base in New Hampshire. First up: York, a resort town that practically lives and breathes the sea. I’d interviewed a local artist for another story just a few weeks prior, and he’d waxed poetic about his love for “York Beach,” his favorite place to create outdoor sculpture. As it turns out, there isn’t a beach called York Beach, but type it into Google Maps, and you’ll get helpful directions to Long Sands Beach, the largest beach in town.

Like most coastal New England towns within an easy drive of Boston, York has been popular with city escapees for centuries. Most of them seemed to be visiting that weekend. At just before 10:00 a.m., Long Beach Avenue was already lined from end to end with cars. We spent about ten minutes looking for parking before giving up. I wouldn’t find out until later that York Harbor Beach, which is smaller but still gets its fair share of tourist traffic, was the one we actually should have been looking for.

In the absence of this crucial intel, we instead pointed toward Nubble Light, one of Maine’s 65 lighthouses. Officially named Cape Neddick Lighthouse, it was built atop a miniscule island, or “nubble” of land, in 1879. You can’t visit the lighthouse itself, but the views from Sohier Park, where there’s free parking and plenty of room to walk out onto the rocks, are excellent. The binoculars we took with us for the puffin tour came in handy here, giving us a closer look at little details like the gingerbread trim on the Victorian-style keeper’s house, and the mini iron lighthouses that ring the railing of the lighthouse’s lantern. We also saw plenty of seabirds, including common loons and double-crested cormorants, plus a group of scuba divers noiselessly pushing out into water like a pod of dolphins.

Portland

Back in the car, we hit the next snag: Route 1, the scenic coastal road that led up to our next planned stop, Kennebunkport, looked more like a Fourth of July parade than a byway. We scrapped Kennebunkport and routed onto the Maine Turnpike for Portland.

Not to be confused with its West Coast sister, Maine’s Portland has its own share of “weirdness,” including a notable fringe arts and culture scene, and the International Cryptozoology Museum. We’d traveled here for a feature story on the city a couple of years back, but this time around would be a short visit. We walked along the Old Port (with a stop to make sure Harbor Fish Market hadn’t been a victim of pandemic closures), and strolled through the cobblestone streets of the downtown.

But we had an M.O. for visiting: Crunchy Poké. Maine’s dining scene is impressive, and in our previous visit, we’d eaten our way through the city. We didn’t have a single bad meal, but this restaurant stood out.

Folks on the West Coast, where poké, a Hawaiian invention, was a thing and then not a thing years before it ever made its way East, would probably find our excitement laughable. But our love for this little hole in the wall on Fore Street runs deep. We couldn’t wait to dig into overstuffed bowls of flavorful marinated fish, vegetables, spicy sauces, and the restaurant’s signature crunchy noodle topping. We ordered a Spicy Ahi Tuna and a Unagi Eel to share, which we ate with few words but lots of mmmm-ing sounds. Once we’d finished, we were so envious of table next to us, where two men were tucking into massive bowls of ramen, that we ordered our own massive bowl to share.

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Brunswick

Next stop: Brunswick. A former shipbuilding town, it’s home to Bowdoin College. The campus itself is lovely, with green lawns punctuated by oaks and maples, their branches heavy with fat summer leaves. There’s also a compact Main Street with several cafes and shops, including for antiques and books. And for history buffs, there are several museums and historic houses, including one that was briefly the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, not far off the main drag.

Traffic in Brunswick was also on the heavy side, and the seemingly endless rows of industrial and commercial buildings and strip malls just beyond the college were a turn-off. I think Brunswick would be worth another stop in the fall, especially if I could time it with a local event or performance. But that day, when I wanted to be outdoors, I was not feeling the industrial vibe.

Damariscotta

The website for Damariscotta, another mid-coast town, calls it “Maine’s best kept secret.” Given the plentiful tourist traffic, I’d say that cat’s been out of the bag and wreaking havoc on the sandbox for a while. But the crowds were thinner here than on the southern Maine coast, and we found a parking spot easily in the public lot right in the center of the downtown.

After walking along the Damariscotta River’s working waterfront, famous for its oysters, we visited several of the shops along Main Street. My top picks: Sheepscott River Pottery for home goods and a wide range of ceramics, and Barn Door Baking Co., located inside Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop, for buttery pastry made in-house from natural ingredients.

With the heat kicking up, we headed for Wicked Scoops, which serves creative flavors from the well-known Maine ice cream brand Gifford’s. It’s the most popular spot on the street on a hot summer day, but the wait gives you a few minutes to speak to your queue neighbor—in my case, a smiling, cowboy-hatted visitor from Alabama who was excited to be out of the Southern heat. . . . and into the Northern humidity.

Damariscotta was a low-key pleasure, and I’m planning to come back here in the fall, this time with a kayak to paddle around the Damariscotta River Estuary. I’ll also visit Newcastle, the “twin” village on the other side of the river, which also has a waterfront downtown with shops and restaurants.

New Harbor

The trip to New Harbor was easier than we’d thought it would be, and we made it with over 90 minutes to spare before the boat tour. GPS was spotty, so we took a drive down a residential road that appeared to be along the shoreline.

An opening in the line of trees and lawns signaled a small parking area. It turned out to be close to Pemaquid Point, which looks out over Muscongus Bay. We left the car in the lot and walked out onto the rocks of Marble Beach. All boulders and pebbly shoreline surrounded by brambles, it has the rough-hewn, wild feeling that I’ve come to love about the Atlantic, even if the water never feels warm. We spent a good thirty minutes here, scrambling along the rocks and letting the wind lift the hair off our sweaty faces.

We laughed at ourselves for being an hour early—too early—for the puffin cruise. Turns out there’s no such thing as “too early” for these tours. Read more about what to expect on a puffin cruise here.

Because we’d tossed together this trip at the last minute, we had a predictably hard time finding a hotel to stay for the night. The only one that was available was the Mid-Town Motel, a 40-minute drive in Boothbay Harbor, back in the direction we’d come. On the way, we stopped in Damariscotta for dinner. At 8:00 p.m., the crowds had disappeared, and we had our pick of restaurants. We chose Best Thai, which, while not memorable, was solidly good and reasonably priced.

The clock had already passed 9:00 p.m. by the time we arrived at the Mid-Town Motel. It doesn’t pretend to be a plush hotel, and lots of online reviewers seemed to love its 1950s kitsch. I found it outdated rather than charming, and the bathroom could have used a deeper cleaning. But the hotel was well located and decently priced, and the owner was friendly and generous in providing recommendations for what to see and do. If I were planning a trip farther in advance, I probably wouldn’t choose it again. But I’ve walked out of Motel 6’s and Best Westerns that were far worse.

Day 2 of Coastal Maine Road Trip

Boothbay Harbor

Boothbay Harbor was cool and quiet when we woke up on Sunday. At checkout, we spent several minutes talking to hotel owner, who advised us on where to eat breakfast and what to see nearby. He also permitted us to leave our car in the parking lot for a couple of hours while we explored the downtown.

Boothbay is one of those idyllic waterfront locations that gets more than its share of summer tourist traffic. The streets seemed empty at first, but that’s because all the visitors were packed inside the restaurants. Though it was our third choice, I’m actually glad we ended up at Bridge Street Café. An easygoing, no-frills kind of place, it had several open tables, including a few with harbor views, and prices were affordable. More important: the blueberry pancakes had some of the most flavorful berries I’ve eaten.

One of the nice parts about a trip that has little in the way of a hard-and-fast itinerary is that you can speed through the passable and linger over the enjoyable. That was the case here, so we took our time with breakfast. Afterward, we strolled the 1,000,-foot pedestrian Boothbay Footbridge, originally built in 1901. It’s a shortcut from one side of the harbor to the other, with New England picturesque views on either side.

At 9:30 a.m., most shops in the downtown weren’t due to open for another couple of hours, so our touring was limited to admiring the architecture and beds of colorful flowers along Boothbay Harbor’s hilly streets.

We checked online for tickets to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, another recommendation from the owner of the Mid-Town Motel. Based on the pictures on the gardens’ website, I was excited to visit. But because of the pandemic, walk-ins aren’t allowed. Also because of the pandemic, everyone and their third cousins are mobbing parks and gardens. As I’ve mentioned in previous stories, while travel is still possible, on a smaller, more local scale, during the pandemic, it has taken a lot of the spontaneity out of exploring new places. We were SOL: there were no available tickets.

Instead we took a scenic drive along the coast, and stopped on the Ocean Point Walk to snap some photos of the shore and the Ram Island Light Station, which sits atop a granite shoal just offshore. Built in 1883, it’s connected to the land by a 214-foot-long iron walkway.

We scrabbled over the rocks for glimpses of sailboats, gulls resting on the rocks, and waves smashing against the jagged shore. I could’ve stayed there most of the day. But Floren, head bent over his phone, said the dreaded words: “Traffic’s picking up.”

Wiscasset

We made it to Wiscasset in about 30 minutes, for Floren’s most anticipated part of the trip: lunch at Red’s Eats, the self-proclaimed “world’s best lobster shack.” Praise has been heaped on the restaurant for years, from everyone from TripAdvisor and Coastal Living magazine to TV chef Rachael Ray and notable bug eater Andrew Zimmern. We were suitably pumped for the full-on Red’s experience . . . only to discover that people had already started lining up a half hour before opening.

We waited as a freckled, sweet-faced young woman brought around a tray of fried shrimp and sympathy for those of us basting in our T-shirts under the hot sun. When the restaurant finally opened and a loudspeaker announcement told us we’d be looking at a 1-hour wait just to get to the front of the line, Sprague’s Lobster, diagonally across the street, started looking pretty damn good.

Here’s the thing: eating is one of my favorite parts of the day, and I’m all in for great foodie experiences. I’ve had them locally and I’ve had them halfway across the world. I wanted to have one here, too. But did I think it was worth an hour-plus wait just to have a lobster roll, a dish I’ve had dozens of times at many excellent restaurants around New England?

I crossed the street and staked a claim to a table at Sprague’s, while Floren tried to come to peace with abandoning the line at Red’s. He finally gave up the wait about 10 minutes later, and we ordered: a haddock sandwich for me (fresh and tender, though the soft, oily bun needed improvement), and a lobster dinner (boiled lobster, slaw, and sweet corn with butter) for him. Maybe it wasn’t as good as a lobster roll at Red’s—I won’t know till I go back sometime in the shoulder season—but the food was fairly satisfying, as was the look on the faces of the kids at the table closest to us, who watched in horror as Floren, in the European way, dug the meat out of the back of the cooked lobster’s head and ate the tomalley.

It was afternoon already, and the trip home loomed. I’d been regretting that we hadn’t saved one of the towns from the day before, maybe Brunswick, for that day. “Maybe we should stop again on the way back?” I asked, more to myself than to Floren, as we made a detour to a roadside farmstand in search of the same flavor-packed blueberries I’d had at breakfast. (Spoiler alert: while not bad, they didn’t hold a candle to the blueberries I buy at my local farmstand in upstate New York.)

The trip went hairy as soon as we pulled onto the highway. As with all weekend vacation destinations, traffic along midcoast Maine is a bear on a summer Sunday, when city folk, high on fresh air, start making their way back to their apartment complexes and tightly packed neighborhoods. Route 95 was moving at the pace of a toddler shopping in a toy store. Floren and I both grumbled loudly.

By virtue of the fact that he’d be staying in New Hampshire for work and I had to drive back home to New York that evening, I had napping rights. I flipped the recline lever on my seat, tilted my head back against the headrest, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off to sleep, the sun and shadows filtering across my eyelids in alternating stripes, I breathed deeply through the open window, the smell of sea salt lingering rustled up from my clothes on gusts of breeze.

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