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A Park Hub Field Guide

Lat 44.3386° N
Long 68.2733° W

Elevation0 – 1,530 ft

Maine · Stamp 03 / 63

Acadia

National Park · Established 1919

Where granite mountains walk straight into the Atlantic, and the sun touches America first.

Area49,075 acres

TrailheadBar Harbor, ME

Visitors3.9M / yr

Scroll to begin the ascent

Live · Park open 24 hrsIsland Explorer shuttle runningCadillac Summit Rd: reservation54°F · sea fog clearing Live layer, from the National Park Service

Best windowJun, and Sep–Oct colorGetting there3 hr from Portland · 4.5 hr from BostonFee$35 / vehicle · 7 days

★★★★★ 4.8 from 2,900+ travelers 760 visitor stories 3.9M / yr annual visitors Grounded in live NPS data

Acadia · Mile 01 · The Story

First light
in America.

For half the year, the first sunlight to touch the United States lands on a bald granite dome on an island in Maine. People climb Cadillac Mountain in the dark to stand in it, coffee steaming, and watch the day arrive before anyone else in the country has seen it. It never gets old, because dawn over an ocean never does.

Acadia is small, a tenth the size of the big western parks, and it wastes none of it. Pink granite headlands drop into surf. Spruce forests run to the tide line. A whole lace of carriage roads, 45 miles of them, built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. so that no engine would ever be heard on them, still carries bikes and horses under sixteen hand-cut stone bridges.

Come for sunrise, stay for popovers at Jordan Pond. Read the story, trust the live data above for what is open today, and when you leave, collect the stamp.

“

Very high mountains, mostly bare of trees. I name this place the Isle des Monts Deserts.

Samuel de Champlain · sailing past, 1604

Bass Harbor Head · Dusk

"In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth."

Rachel Carson

Acadia · Mile 02 · The Essentials

Best Things to Do in Acadia

Six ways in, from popovers by a pond to iron rungs up a cliff face.

See

Cadillac sunrise

First light in the country, October through March. Book the vehicle reservation in season or earn it on foot.

Everyone · reserve

Thunder Hole at half tide

When the swell is right, the sea slams a granite slot and booms like artillery. Time it two hours before high tide.

Families · free show

Drive

Park Loop Road

27 miles of headlands, cobble beaches, and spruce. The whole park in one slow morning.

Road-trippers

Bike

The carriage roads

45 car-free miles under stone bridges, built so you would never hear an engine. Rent in Bar Harbor.

Cyclists · families

Eat

Popovers at Jordan Pond

Tea and popovers on the lawn since the 1890s, facing the Bubbles. The most civilized trail snack in any park.

Everyone · tradition

Camp

Blackwoods Campground

In the spruce, a short walk from the sea. Reserve well ahead for summer.

Campers · book early

Free · Ready in Seconds

Free AI Trip Planner

Plan Your Acadia Trip

Answer a few questions right here — we'll map your day, stop by stop, with a route, timings, weather, and a packing checklist grounded in real park data. No account, no leaving this page.

Free preview · no card required

When the Crowds ComeMonthly visitors · tap a year

Illustrative shape · wires to official NPS visitation stats · summer peaks shown in gold

Ocean Path · Any hour

"The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the wind in a primeval wood, and the outer ocean on a beach."

Henry Beston

Acadia · Mile 03 · Trails & Viewpoints

Best Hikes in Acadia, by Difficulty

Every trail rated honestly, with distance, climb, and whether you need a permit before you set a boot down.

Ocean Path

Easy

4.4 mi+50 ft~2 hr

Sand Beach to Otter Point along the famous pink granite. Step off anywhere and sit with the surf. No permit.

Jordan Pond Path

Easy

3.3 miflat~1.5 hr

A full loop of the clearest water in Maine, half of it on log boardwalk. Finish with popovers. No permit.

Cadillac North Ridge

Moderate

4.4 mi+1,100 ft~3 hr

The honest way up the sunrise mountain: open granite with the bay behind you the whole climb. No permit.

Exposure

The Beehive

Strenuous

1.4 mi+450 ftrungs

Iron rungs and ledges straight up a cliff above Sand Beach. Short, thrilling, and not for anyone shaky on ladders.

Seasonal closure

The Precipice

Strenuous

2.1 mi+1,000 ftrungs

The most exposed trail in the park, closed spring to mid-August while peregrine falcons nest. When open, it is unforgettable.

Great Head Loop

Easy–Mod

1.7 mi+145 ft~1.5 hr

A headland loop above Sand Beach with the best cheap views in the park. No permit.

Cadillac Summit Road needs a vehicle reservation in season · the Precipice closes for nesting falcons, spring to mid-August

Acadia at a Glance

1 Hulls Cove Visitor Center

2 Sand Beach

3 Thunder Hole

4 Jordan Pond & Pond House

5 Cadillac Mountain Summit

6 Park Loop Road · Bar Harbor

Shuttle stops shown in visit order. Build a plan above and this map updates to your exact stops.

Acadia · Mile 04 · The Living Coast

Wildlife in Acadia: Animals You Might See

Tap any animal to learn its story. Soon, the app will let you log what you spot and keep a life list for every park.

They haul out on the offshore ledges at low tide like a committee that has given up. Bring binoculars to Otter Point or take a ranger boat tour.

The reason the Precipice closes each spring. Watch the Champlain cliffs and you may see the fastest animal alive teaching its chicks to fly.

That long, unearthly call across Jordan Pond at dusk is a loon. Once heard, never confused with anything else.

Back from the brink and now patrolling the bay. Scan the tall shoreline pines for the white head.

Works the meadow edges and carriage roads at first light, tail like a paintbrush dipped in white.

Browsing the forest edges at dawn and dusk, remarkably unbothered by an island full of admirers.

Plant Life in Acadia: What Grows Here

The granite balds are laced with wild blueberries. In late summer you can graze your way up Cadillac, which is very Maine.

Twisted little pines growing out of bare rock, pruned by salt wind into natural bonsai.

The deep, hushed evergreen woods between the summits, smelling of resin and fog.

The olive-brown seaweed coating the intertidal rocks. It is a whole habitat; step around it, not on it, when tidepooling.

Fun Facts About Acadia

Fact 01

Acadia was the first national park east of the Mississippi, protected in 1919 largely with donated private land.

Fact 02

From October to March, Cadillac Mountain catches the first sunrise in the United States before anywhere else in the country.

Fact 03

John D. Rockefeller Jr. built 45 miles of carriage roads and 16 stone bridges here so the island would always have engine-free travel.

Fact 04

The island’s mountains were named by a French explorer in 1604, sixteen years before the Mayflower sailed.

Acadia · Provisions

Gear for this parkvia AvantLink

Windproof shellPatagonia

Day packOsprey

Trail runnersREI

Stay nearbyvia Hipcamp

Coastal sites, Mount Desert Island
Spruce shade and sea air, from $39 a night.

Free Acadia checklistdigital · $0

The printable trail and packing checklist in the field-guide style. Take it, join the trail list.

Acadia · Mile 05 · From the Field Journal

Go Deeper on Acadia

Stories, guides, and hard-won tips from the trail. The full Acadia deep dive lives on the journal.

Permits

★AcadiaPark Hub · Collected

Your passport

One stamp,
one story.

Log the visit, keep your story, and watch the map of all sixty-three fill in behind you. Every stamp has a keepsake worth holding.

Acadia · Mile 06 · Where to Next

Keep the Journey Going

Next park

Zion

Trade the tide for a slot canyon carved half a mile into the desert.

Open Stamp 01 → The collection

All 63 Parks

See the full map and track every stamp you have earned.

View the map → Plan

Build a Trip

Turn Acadia into a road trip with a custom, day-by-day itinerary.

Start planning → Go deeper

The Acadia Deep Dive

The long-form guide: every trail, season, and secret, on the journal.

Read it →

Carry the field guide

Offline maps, your passport, and every park in your pocket on the trail.

The Book

Keepsake

The Park Hub field guide

The printed edition, part atlas, part journal, one story per park.

The Shop

Prints · pins · passport

Take Acadia home

Field-guide posters, enamel stamps, and the passport book to fill in.

Sixty-two parks remain

"The parks do not belong to one state or to one section... they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona."

Stephen Mather · first director of the National Park Service

Begin your journey