Acadia national park

Dont miss the popovers at the Jordon Pond house.

Buffalo Rose,
Here is the report on Acadia. I’ll start with – we loved it! We did not want to leave and could easily have spent a month and still not done all we’d like to do. We are the outdoorsy kind so our activities tended toward nature rather than retail but we did wander a good many stores during our time there. After being there, I strongly recommend you have a car as stated by those before me.

Park Pass: You have to have the park pass to travel through Acadia. I recommend calling to see if you can get that at the campground in case you want to go there first. We went to the visitor center to get ours and the line was long. The Federal Senior Pass covers you so you don’t have to pay the $20 weekly pass fee but you will have to hang your pass in your vehicle during your stay. They give you a card holder that hooks on the mirror.

Campsite: Blackwoods Campground check in is at NOON. If you get there ten minutes before that, they’ll have you turn around and leave. You can park along the side of Rte 3 on the way in. They assign the sites, you have no choice (though I did see someone asking to switch sites and it looked like they were going to be allowed to do it.) Our site was a pull through that was sloped a bit so we were never fully level but with the 2350 you should be able to angle to get reasonably level. We have the 2552 and a 12x12 screen house that we fit on the site as well as our Subaru Forester. I recommend you tell them that you don’t mind a back in site. SOME of these looked totally level. The sites are large, shaded and beautiful. You buy firewood along the road on the way in. The park does not sell it. Note that some sites have a pretty decent walk to the rest rooms if there are no empty sites to cut through. If you need to be close to the rest rooms, tell them that when you check in.

Water spigots are near the rest rooms and a few other spots but not all over. It was a distance for us. We used collapsible water jugs and either lugged it around to camp or drove to the spigot, filled up and drove it back. Dishwashing dump station is also outside the rest rooms. There is no place to wash dishes there. You do that at camp then carry the water to dump.

Dump station is convenient. Things to note: There is ONE dump station for a huge campground. We didn’t encounter a line but I’m sure it can happen. It is closed during daily check in times due to the location. Any line at the dump station would block access to the camp loops.

Showers: The town of Otter Creek is just up the road and you’ll drive through it on your way in to camp. There are pay showers there that were never full. It is $2.00 in quarters for 4 minutes and/or 10 gallons of hot water. You can turn the water off and back on so you don’t exceed the 10 gallons, but it will still shut off at 4 minutes. Note that there is a little general store in Otter Creek if you forgot anything or if you want REALLY GOOD blueberry muffins. Proprietor is a very nice man.

Boondocking for three days with no hook ups means you can easily use your rig for all water requirements and dump as needed. We took ours out to dump once during our week there and easily set it back in the mostly level section of our site. We had four people on board so tanks filled faster.

Bar Harbor has RV parking along the edge of a park on Rte 3. It is on the outbound side of the road. It isn’t a lot of space but we never saw it filled. Most parking in Bar Harbor is free 2-Hour parking until 6 pm. There are two free all day parking areas. One on Rte 3 near the RV parking and the other is out a ways along the road that parallels the harbor. There are a few free parking lots a block off the main road through town. We usually parked on Cottage Street and always found a spot.

Activities: Check the park website for Ranger program schedules. A few items to note – the sandbar that you can walk out on to Bar Island in Bar Harbor is exposed two hours on each side of low tide. Thunder Hole is best 2-3 hours before high tide (and more so after a storm). The best tide pooling is on the west side at Ship Harbor and Wonderland. The Wild Gardens of Acadia at the Nature Center are very cool if you like plants or are curious about what plants grow in what areas. Two popovers and a beverage at Jordon Pond House now cost $10.00. They are excellent, but still. If you are over near Seawall early in the day, there is the “Common Good Café” that works on a donation basis. Money earned is used to finance their winter soup kitchen and meals on wheels type of activities. Not the spiff Jordan Pond surroundings but nice view of the ocean, free wifi and good food. They sell (also excellent) hot popovers with jam and several butters as well as oatmeal and coffee and juice between 7 and 11:30 each day. You serve yourself and drop your donation in a box. We ate both places and enjoyed both.

The park visitor center (or campground) gives you the National Park brochure/map and other items as requested. We got the carriage road map and ranger program schedule. However, the most useful item was a free weekly Acadia booklet that they had at Blackwoods and also on a table at the Harbor (indoor hallway in front of the Whale Watch store). They are probably also at the information center in Bar Harbor but we never went in there.

I hope this helps. Let me know if there is something in particular you are interested in. We might have seen it or done it and have info on it. I also have a Guide to the National Parks e-book with some good information that can be loaned out. Send me a personal email with your personal email address and I’ll lend it to you. Amazon lets you keep it a maximum of 14 days then it goes away on your device and I can access it again. You should be able to read it on Amazon’s Cloud Reader even if you don’t have a Kindle.

Forgot something important - The College of the Atlantic. They are on Rte 3 and house the Dorr Museum (suggested donation for admission, no more than $3/person). It is a small museum but has a touch tank so you can see and hold all the things you couldn't find in the tide pools. They also have mounts/displays of the wildlife in the area. The college has gardens and a gallery that are open to the public but we didn't go into them. The Dive In Theater with Diver Ed leaves from their dock. I highly recommend that trip for anyone with kids along.

I did send you a personal reply, but wanted to thank you again for the great information.  It is truly appreciated.  What a great group of folks on this forum....

I know this is an old thread, but we are planning a trip next week to Maine leaving from NJ.  Any tips n the best route to take.  I'd obviously prefer to dodge traffic and those pesky low bridges. 

Not knowing where your starting from this may or may not help.  We make the trip from southern points to our home in Maine a number of times per year we avoid I95 like the plaque.  We take I 84 to Newburg NY, pick up I 87 to Mass Pike, when we're in the Phoenix, in the car we will stay on 84 to the Mass Pike.  Driving though southern Conn.  and Hartford, can be miserable, with lots of traffic and numerous lane changes. The Mass Pike route is more expensive with tolls and an extra 100 miles or so but in our estimation well worth it.  From our experience there are also better camping locations with this route, although I am sure there are good spots to be found. If you take the Mass pike all of our GPS' try to exit us in Worcester, which can again put you into heavy traffic. Stay on for another 10 miles or so and exit on I 495 ( try to avoid 495 during the commuting hours) This is where you would end up if you went (and survived taking 95). From this point on its 95, NH and Maine turn pikes.  Here you have a choice of getting off on route 1 in Brunswick or going on and picking up route 3 around Agusta. As we live in the Camden Rockland area so we always get off at one of the Brunswick exits. Route 1 to route 3 in Bucksport which takes you to Ellsworth and follow the signs from there. 
We just got back from Virginia taking the Hartfofd route this week and encounted no problems. We were also at Acadia a few weeks ago.  Sites are nice, although ours required a bit of leveling, as do a number of them. Their saying our foliage is running late by at lesat a week, so not telling just how colorful it will be here. In addition to all the great things in the Park the Canadian Maritimes are a relatively short drive away We always enjoy  Campobello and Roosevelts home, if interested remember a passport is necessary.  Hope this helps, and feel free to ask for more information.
Enjoy your trip

Thank you, lots of info to take in

Arcadia was fun, thanks for the help everyone