Maine + Acadia National Park

 

Acadia National Park has been on my wish list for years, and in June we finally went! It was the perfect place for our first big trip with just our family. 

The national park and the cute town of Bar Harbor, where we stayed, had things for all the kids' ages and we spent most days outside exploring - just what we wanted! It was 20 degrees cooler than back home, and absolutely beautiful!

Highlights were exploring Bar Harbor; playing at Sand Beach followed by a 1-mile hike to Thunder Hole; Cadillac Mountain for a 360 view of the park; Lulu Lobster Boat ride for Matt, Luke and Lydia where they watched professionals catch lobsters and even got to throw them back in themselves ("un, deux, trois, au revior!"), and saw seals and light houses along the Main coast; Bass Harbor Head Light Station; Jordan Pond for a short hike; completing activities around the national park to become official Junior Rangers (Luke especially loved this and got a Junior Ranger hat that he refused to take off for the rest of the day! Matt said it was set up a lot like getting a Boy Scout badge); swimming at Echo Lake; an aquarium / children's museum about lobsters and the lobstering industry! Again this was especially amazing for Luke and he went all-in on the imagination play at the pretend lobstering boat! He declared that lobsters are his new favorite animal and I gotta say, after all we learned about them, they're pretty cool! 🦞

Our AirBNB had a cute playground with a beach view so between activities the kids would play there.

It was a great trip! We easily filled 5 days, and I would happily go back with older kids one day to do the many popular hikes that were too advanced for our group this time. 

We love Maine!

Downtown Bar Harbor

Luke and Lydia found lots of crab claws and shells on Sand Beach

The water was 55 degrees but Luke still dove in several times!

Cadillac Mountain

Matt explaining how to read a compass

Of course Matt tried lobster ice cream!

Swimming at Echo Lake

Lulu Lobster Boat ride!

Luke's drawing of a lobster boat complete with trap, buoy and lobster!

The park rangers were great and had stations for kids all around the park.
It really helped the kids understand what they saw!

Cutest community pie sale!

Vivian loves playing in water of all kinds, tide pools included!

Pretend lobster boat with all the tools and traps! Luke was into it!

Lobster tacos!

And of course Maine blueberries

This picture doesn't do it justice, but ranger-led tar gazing on Sand Beach was incredible! 
About 100 people laying on the beach while two park rangers explained the different stars and constellations we could see.

Getting sworn in as Junior Rangers on our last day in the park!