2016 East Coast - Maine

Maine - gray mists rising over rocky shores, hard-scrabble fishing villages....this was my recollection from our last visit to this state 33 years ago.  It still holds true, but so does high-impact tourism, expensive seafood restaurants, shoulder-to-shoulder village sidewalks, bumper-to-bumper traffic, kitchey tourist-trap shops.

Our initial goal was to head back to Acadia National Park, which we remembered fondly for wilderness hikes, rocky-shore campgrounds, buying inexpensive lobster and rock crab in little towns and cooking them in seawater scooped within yards of our camper, as recommended by the little seafood shops.  All this is still possible, but not in the towns surrounding the main section of Acadia National Park (e.g. Bar Harbor), as it was 30+ years ago.  Now Bar Harbor is over-run by tourists who arrive by cruise ship, by bus, by camper, by car.  The Acadia National Park overlooks and hiking trail parking lots - on a cold, rainy, foggy, post-labor-day, mid-week day - were overrun/overparked. Our initial response was negative: "Can you imagine what this must be like in prime tourism season?", but was softened eventually by the realization that recognition and use of national and state parks is a GOOD thing.  But subsequently we were saddened by the impact that this level of tourism has on these beautiful natural wonders.  I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that we were fortunate is being able to see the multiple aspects of living in this area.  Bottom line, the Maine coast is incredibly beautiful - that we chose to spend most of our time in the less-traveled, less-touristy areas is not a condemnation of those who would prefer to visit the more touristy areas, which have their own charm....just not charm that we appreciate.