My fiancee and I spent a few wonderful days on Mount Desert Island exploring Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park, and the rest of the island. We hiked and ate at pretty much every chance we got. Below, are some of the highlights from our trip and I’m certainly looking forward to having another chance to explore this area again in the future.

Hiking

• Ocean Path Trail (begin at sand beach and walk to otter point, about 2 miles roundtrip)
  • You can park anywhere along this strip, it’s a point to point hike you can see as much as you’d like or drive this entire 13 mile stretch, it’s beautiful
• South Bubble/Bubble Rock
  • There are two options, you can hike from the parking lot here and it’s significantly easier, or you can access this trail from the Jordan Pond Loop and it is a mountain climbing sequel uphill. (1.2 miles total)
  • Beautiful views of Jordan Pond from up here
• Jordan Pond Loop
  • About 3 miles – very very pretty and easy walk
    • If you plan to eat at the Jordan Pond House, time it so you finish the loop at 11am when they open – when we finished the loop at 2, the line was insane and we came back the following day to eat there
• Bar Island
  • At low tide, a sand bar appears across the water and you can reach another island (you can easily see this when you’re downtown at the waterfront)
    • The walk is less than a mile, and doing the entirety isn’t necessary. But it’s still pretty cool to see/experience
• Beehive Loop
  • This trail had metal rungs coming off the side of it. If you want to feel super accomplished this trail is the move. (1.4 miles) going down doesn’t have metal rungs and is easier

Food

• Jeannie’s Great Maine Breakfast
  • Solid breakfast spot, opens early, we went after watching the sunrise
• Cafe This Way
  • Best breakfast we had – wish we went for dinner too. Blueberry pancakes are a must!
• Jordan Pond House 
  • got there shortly before they opened at 11 and there was a line. The spot is clearly a tourist trap but the popovers were great
• Side Street Cafe
  • Dinner was good! Their website has a way you can add yourself to the wait list ahead of time – we added ourselves to the wait list at like 5:30 and ended up sitting at 7:45
• Mount Dessert Baking
  • We grabbed coffee + breakfast from here and ate it near otter point/otter cove in Acadia. We basically just stopped randomly along park loop road – that was very relaxing and fun
• Thurston’s
  • Lobster Point in Bass Harbor – beautiful spot on the water – everything was so fresh and a quintessential Maine experience felt like eating at a lobster pound

Other Activities

• Watch the sunrise at Cadillac Mountain
  • If you really can’t stomach waking up that early, drive to the top for the views later in the day
• Watch the sunset at Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse
  • From the parking lot when facing the water, if you head to the right you can get super close to the lighthouse. But if you go to the left there’s a short trail (less than half a mile) and you get an awesome view
    • WEAR SNEAKERS, it is rocky
• Drive around Mount Dessert Island
  • Tons of cute little towns, we didn’t stop anywhere specific but the views were incredible
• Rent Bikes
  • We didn’t have a chance to do this but it came highly recommended
• Rent Kayaks
  • If we spent one more day here, this is what we would have done – but we did kayak in Portland

Want to know exactly what we did? I included our itinerary from our four days on Mount Desert Island Below:

Where we stayed: Tide Watch Cabins 

• Sunday
  • Ocean Path Trail (sand beach to otter point)
  • Thunder Hole (thunder splashes)
  • West Street Cafe
• Monday
  • Cadillac Mountain Sunrise 
  • Jeannie’s Great Maine Breakfast (opens at sunrise) 
  • Hike South Bubble/Bubble Rock
  • Hike Jordan Pond Loop
  • Bar Harbor Lobster Co for lunch
  • Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse (sunset)
  • Testa’s for dinner
• Tuesday
  • Cadillac Mountain Sunrise
  • Hike to Bar Island
  • Cafe This Way (Breakfast)
  • Hike the Beehive Loop
  • Snacks at Jordan Pond House
  • Drive around Mount Desert Island
  • Downeast Deli for lunch
  • Walk around Bar Harbor
  • Side Street Cafe for dinner
• Wednesday
  • Mount Desert Baking / Thrive Juice Bar – grab items to go and eat at Otter Cove
  • Drive the park loop road
  • Thurston’s for lunch
  • Head to Camden for the night

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