We had very few definite plans during our 2021 road trip; one of those was visiting Acadia National Park. Prior to our visit, Kenn had expressed some concerns about it. When I asked what he meant he said that he was afraid that he had put Acadia on such a mental pedestal that the actual park was going to be a disappointment. Little did we know how true this statement would turn out to be. Sadly, neither of us was blown away by Acadia.

Don’t get me wrong. Acadia National Park is beautiful, but we didn’t see anything in the park that we hadn’t seen during our drives along the highways and byways of Maine. It might have been different if we had made reservations for the Cadillac Summit Road or Sand Beach but we elected to skip those so we didn’t have to spend our day working around reservations.

After visiting Glacier and Yellowstone in the month of July (2019), we intentionally scheduled our trip to Acadia for September, after Labor Day when the kiddos are back in school; we thought this would make for smaller crowds. We were wrong. According to one of the park rangers, up until a couple of years ago we would have been correct in our assumption. She said that she doesn’t know what has changed but that over the past couple of years, they no longer experience a lull in the number of visitors after Labor Day.

Due to COVID restrictions, masks were required in all park facilities and no more than five people were allowed inside at a time which meant that there were long lines at all visitor’s centers, etc. There were outdoor kiosks for the purchase of park tickets and the stamps for national park passports were also set up outside. (Acadia was the first stamp in our passport!) Since our schedule was flexible and we’d had a day of rain we discussed staying in the area longer so we could spend more time in Acadia but decided against it.

Whereas I have dozens of pictures from our visits to Glacier and Yellowstone I only have a handful from Acadia. We have no regrets about visiting Acadia; it would have been a shame to travel to Maine and not go. However, should we ever return to Maine, we’ll skip Acadia and visit places we missed this time around.

My next post will be about one of my favorite parts of the trip.😊 Until then, take care and happy trails!