Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park covers about 200 square kilometres on the coast of Maine, mostly on Mount Desert Island, with smaller sections on the Schoodic Peninsula and Isle au Haut. The town of Bar Harbor is its main gateway. It was first protected as Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916, became Lafayette National Park in 1919, the first national park east of the Mississippi River, and took the name Acadia in 1929.

Much of the land was donated by wealthy summer residents, led by George B. Dorr and Charles W. Eliot. John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded about 72 kilometres of carriage roads between 1913 and 1940, gravel paths for horses and carriages, with 17 granite bridges. They are closed to cars and are now used by walkers, cyclists and riders.

Cadillac Mountain, at about 466 metres, is the highest point on the Atlantic coast of the United States, and from autumn to spring its summit is one of the first places in the country to see the sunrise. The Park Loop Road, about 43 kilometres long, links many of the main sights, including Sand Beach, Thunder Hole, where waves crash into a rocky inlet, Otter Cliff and Jordan Pond, with views of the rounded hills called the Bubbles.

The park has more than 240 kilometres of hiking trails, from easy shore paths to iron rung routes such as the Precipice and Beehive trails. Wildlife includes seabirds, peregrine falcons and seals along the coast.

As of October 2026 the National Park Service charges 35 US dollars per private vehicle for seven days, and non US residents aged 16 and over pay an added 100 US dollar surcharge. Driving the Cadillac Summit Road from 20 May to 25 October also needs a separate $6 vehicle reservation, sold online through Recreation.gov. A walk-in or cyclist pass costs $20 for seven days, and the Acadia annual pass $70. The free Island Explorer bus runs from late June to early October.

More than twenty named mountains rise in the park, from Flying Mountain at 87 metres to Cadillac at 466 metres. Glaciers shaped them, leaving exposed granite domes, U-shaped valleys, cobble beaches and glacial erratics such as Bubble Rock, seen from the Park Loop Road near the Bubbles.

George B. Dorr, often called the Father of Acadia National Park, spent decades buying land and lobbying Washington. Summer visitors came to Mount Desert Island in large numbers from the nineteenth century, and the wealthy families who built summer houses here later gave much of the land to the park.

Between spring and autumn, visitors drive or take the bus along the Park Loop Road, ride bikes or horses on the carriage roads, climb, paddle on the lakes, swim at Sand Beach or Echo Lake, and join ranger programmes. Sea kayaking and boat tours leave from Bar Harbor.