The Towns of Mount Desert Island
When people come to Mount Desert Island a couple of things happen:
They don’t realize that it’s an island.
They don’t realize that Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor are different things.
They don’t realize that there are other towns besides Bar Harbor.
We’re here to tell you there are. Each community on Mount Desert Island has a slightly different feel to it, which is actually pretty wonderful. Even within each town, the villages have different feels and ambience.
If you truly want to experience the island, you want to wander off Acadia National Park’s Park Loop Road and explore.
BAR HARBOR
Bar Harbor is our island’s largest town. People who like to hate will say it’s just a tourist trap or that it’s too crowded. They are wrong.
Bar Harbor is a community. Even it four major downtown streets (Main, Cottage, West and Rodick) have magical, quirky elements if you let yourself see them.
Bar Harbor used to be Eden. It was a refuge for the wealthy. Pulitzers and Vanderbilts made cottages, which were mansions, which were just for summer. The Great Fires of 1947, ruined a lot of those homes, but not all.
Beautiful places are easy to get to from downtown proper. But, Bar Harbor is more than just downtown. Town Hill is a thriving community. Salsbury Cove hosts the MDI Biological Laboratory. JAX Laboratories is just a bit out of town.
Visitors and locals enjoy the Shore Path, which hugs the coast, beginning at Ells Pier downtown and extending past the Bar Harbor Inn, Balance Rock Inn and Breakwater Estate, built for John Jacob Astor’s grandson approximately 120 years ago.
Off West Street, there’s the Bar Island Trail, which makes Bar Island accessible at low tide for walkers. Do not drive your car on the sand bar. Almost every year, a car gets stuck. It takes a lot of money to get unstuck. There are trails on the island.
Boat tours also run out of downtown. Guided kayak tours do as well.
The ultimate place to get some space, though, is on the water. Multiple boat tours embark from the town wharf, with passengers watching for whales and seabirds or, on lobster boats, learning how Maine’s signature crustacean is caught.
The Jesup Library, Bar Harbor Historical Society in the gorgeous LaRochelle on West Street, Abbe Museum stay open and 1932 Criterion Theatre are all gorgeous event centers and attractions.
Some Top Things
The Abbe Museum. 26 Mt. Desert St. 207-288-3519.
Museum in the Streets. It’s self guided and a walking tour. Begin at Agamont Park, at the intersection of Main and West streets.
Bar Harbor Historical Society. Housed in La Rochelle, which is a massive Georgian Revival mansion built in 1903. It’s on the waterfront. The lawn and piazza are amazing.
127 West St. 207-288-0000.
Some Cool Things
Reel Pizza. Pizza. Couches. Movies. Need we say more?
Criterion Theatre. Run now by the Harbor House Foundation, this theater is the chef’s kiss of art deco theater and it has a long and romantic history.
My Darling Maine. It has tourist thing, but it’s more than that. It’s home.
A Little Mad. It’s more than a little cool. Check out this shop if you have a second.
The Finback and The Annex. Locals go here to get live music or fun karaoke.
Le Brun, Table Salt, and Havana, plus the Reading Room and the Balance Rock. Feeling fancy? These are the restaurants for you.
MOUNT DESERT
This town, settled back in 1789, is Maine with a touch of old-school class, comprised of six villages, lovely stores and a whole lot of Acadia National Park and some billionaires who visit for the summer.
It has a post office to catch up on the gossip if you don’t get caught up on Northeast Harbor’s lovely main street. It has a marina that bustles. It’s got a cool mix of quirky and old fashioned to make it feel like it should star in a movie or a children’s book.
The villages curve around Somes Sound. The population is approximately half of Bar Harbor’s.
Most of the commercial activity is in Northeast Harbor. Beautiful, older, white clapboard homes accentuate Somesville, which has a library, much-photographed wooden bridge, art galleries, and churches. The amazing Acadia Rep Theater is here in the summer.
Otter Creek is gorgeous and a lovely group of humans live here. Hall Quarry and Pretty Marsh are mostly residential. Seal Harbor hosts a small and wonderful strip of shops, a beach, a beautiful pond and a back way into Acadia National Park. It’s a bit of a wealthy summer retreat for families with last names like Rockefeller and Ford and Stewart.
The communities are striving to be more year round with the efforts of Mount Desert 365, a local nonprofit. Fires in the 2008 and 2009 devastated parts of Northeast Harbor’s downtown.
Some Top Things
The Somesville Footbridge. It’s super pretty and at 2 Oak Hill Rd.
Sargent Drive. There’s something super fun about this 3.8-mile road along the water. There will be signs as you head into Northeast Harbor.
Land and Garden Preserve’s Gardens. These grounds are just . . . amazing. If you want to be outside and not in Acadia National Park, you need to check out the trio of formal gardens in Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor. The Asticou Azalea Garden (3 Sound Drive), the English-style Thuya Garden (15 Thuya Drive) are open to the public, though donations are nice to help with upkeep. Once you’re there, you’ll see why.
The amazing Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Garden requires reservations. Tickets are currently $15.
Maine Granite Industry Museum at 62 Beech Hill Cross Road is a curated view of the island’s history with granite.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
Charming? Check.
Full of cool wharves? Check.
Lobster pounds available? Check.
Butterfly garden? Absolutely.
Flamingo Festival every year? It’s the best.
Southwest Harbor is a super charming town that also embraces Acadia National Parks. With seashores, art galleries, a brilliant flamingo festival, and lovely restaurants on its Main Street, there is something beautiful about the town, which is often billed as “the entryway to MDI’s Quietside.”
It’s more than that though. It has a working waterfront. And it has a lovely quirky attitude sometimes, too.
Europeans settled here in 1777. It became an official town in 1905.
The harbor, which is the largest on the island, used to host a steamship terminal. IT’s also been the site of sardine cannery. The Coast Guard has a base here, too.
Some Top Things
Wendell Gilley Museum. 4 Herrick Rd. 207-244-7555.
Maine State Sea Kayak. 254 Main St. 207-244-9500.
Little Notch Bakery & Café. 340 Main St. 207-244-3357.
Charlotte Rhoades Garden and Butterfly Park, 191 Main Street.
TREMONT
If I were going to move to another town on Mount Desert Island, it would probably be Tremont.
That’s not just because it has the least people; it’s because it feels the most loving and the most chill.
It’s a narrow piece of community that’s located on the southwestern corner of the island. Route 102 splits it in half.
If you want to hike in the park without seeing a lot of people? This is the place.
Bernard Mountain’s west side is here, but it isn’t quite as iconic as the eastern mountains because it doesn’t feature quite so many peaks. There is a lighthouse here and that gets pretty crowded as do Seawall and Wonderland, which are two of the easiest trails to walk. People still twist ankles, but it’s pretty chill.
Back in 1848, the town had Beech and Mansell Mountains in it, too. But in 1905, the town split and Southwest Harbor took that eastern side. The rich people who travelled and visited most of Mount Desert Island mostly left Tremont to itself. I think that is part of why it’s so lowkey and chill.
There are six villages in the town. There is a working waterfront. There are cool humans. They are the kind of humans that hug you, pet your dog, and offer you a beer. If you want to see a lobster trap in a front yard, head over here (or just down School Street in Bar Harbor, actually).
Okay. Yeah. I need to move.
Some Top Things
Seal Cove Auto Museum. It’s adorable even if you aren’t into cars and it’s full of these beautiful antique cars, many of the collection come from a wealthy family that summered here. It’s all about the history of cars entwined with the history of the island and the people who work here? They are loves. Seriously. So nice. It’s at
1414 Tremont Rd., Seal Cove.
Tremont Historical Society and Country Store Museum. This place? These people? Holy lobster, they are so nice and they know so many things.
The museum was built in 1908. It’s been a bank, a store, a post office. It was a community gathering place and it’s awesome. You can find it at 4 Granville Road., Bass Harbor. 207-244-9753.
Thurston’s Lobster Pound. You want the lobster, you know it. The people of Thurston’s on the Bass Harbor wharf have been doing the lobster things since the 1940s. They know their lobster. It’s beautiful here. Spoiler: You do not have to eat lobster. You can order other things, too. It’s at 9 Thurston Road., Bernard. 207-244-7600.
Bass Harbor Head Light Station. It’s a lighthouse on the shore. It’s part of Acadia the National Park and is so cute and lovely that it’s been featured on a quarter. Check it out.