“You ever been Downeast?” a local asked when I first arrived on Mount Desert Island years ago. It’s an essential question, and a must-know term if you plan on exploring a certain northerly part of Maine.
“Downeast,” an Americanism dating back to the 1810’s, is a sliding scale of remoteness: it literally refers to Washington County and Hancock County, the northernmost coastal counties before the Canadian border, but it’s also an adjective. The further up the coast you travel, the “more downeast” you go. It’s also its very own variation of the Maine accent, and most importantly, it’s a state of mind. Many go to Maine–but the ones with a spiritual understanding of what this state has to offer go Downeast.
At this region’s heart is the surprisingly fabulous hub of Mount Desert Island. (Pro tip: That’s “desert” as in Sahara or Mojave. Mount Desert, one of the island’s four towns, is pronounced “dessert” as in sweets.) Most of the island is covered by Acadia National Park, known for its epic oceanfront cliffs and hiking paths lined with wild blueberry bushes. There are some 18 mountains on the island—the highest seaside summits on the Atlantic coast north of Rio de Janeiro—and the handful of villages around the island’s perimeter are about as charming as coastal New England gets.
It’s also one of the most discreet bastions of American pedigree. Gilded Age greats like the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts had estates here, and Martha Stewart’s iconic Skylands estate is in the town of Seal Harbor. Not that you’d ever know–if glitzy hotspots like Aspen, the Hamptons, or Palm Beach are about socializing, MDI is where the fabulous go to disappear. This unpretentious island is still very much a place where locals greet each other by first name and fishermen sail out before sunrise to pull up their lobster traps. In brief, it’s a perfect microcosm of all the things that make New England so great. Here, our tips for doing it right.
How to Get There
“If it was easy to come here, everybody would,” locals tend to say. The five-hour drive north from Boston is no easy feat, but luckily, Cape Air offers daily service to the island from Logan Airport—so long as you can handle the bumpy, low-altitude flight in an eight-seater Cessna. Bringing a car is probably your best bet, however. That way, you can be free to explore the less-visited corners of Acadia National Park, as well as see all the coastal villages that make the island so special: Bar Harbor, Bass Harbor, Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont, to name a few.
New for 2026 is the Acadia Gateway Center, a National Park Service facility welcoming visitors to this part of Maine. It’s located on Route 3 in Trenton, three miles north of MDI. The facility will offer free day-use parking, a bus stop for the Island Explorer shuttle, and an 11,000 square-foot information center with exhibits and information about Acadia National Park. If you need help plotting hiking routes or just want to learn about the park’s history (and the role the Rockefellers played in preserving it), that will be an essential stop.
Where to Stay
MDI has never lacked for inns or B&Bs, but in recent years the hospitality scene has undergone a bit of a facelift–one that fortunately honors the island’s storied past while bringing its design into a new era.
Atlantic Hospitality is the name to know here. In Northeast Harbor, they operate the Asticou Hotel, a glowed-up renovation of the longstanding grande dame Asticou Inn, which had long been a favorite of Martha Stewart and Ariana Rockefeller. The decor is a huge departure from the well-worn carpets and antique furniture that WASPs loved for decades. And, personally speaking, I’ve never been able to forgive them for gutting the restaurant and removing the iconic lobster stew with popovers from the menu–but Dahlia’s is still one of the cooler spots on the island for a drink and dinner. This is where you’ll want to base yourself if excursions to nearby Acadia National Park are on the menu.
Across the island, Atlantic Hospitality also has another property, The Claremont in Southwest Harbor, situated on six heavenly acres overlooking Soames Sound, the only fjord on the eastern seaboard. Their unpretentious Fish Camp restaurant perched directly on the water is a perfect spot to enjoy margaritas, local Allagash Brewing beers and Maine favorites like local oysters and lobster rolls. To be a little closer to the action of downtown Bar Harbor, check out Salt Cottages, a range of studio, one and two-bedroom cottages a short distance from the restaurants, shops and galleries of MDI’s largest town.
Where to Eat
Because the island is home to year-round Mainers as well as a huge influx of sophisticated summer residents from around the world, the restaurant scene on this small island offers a great mix. Locals know that the best breakfast around is either the oversize omelettes at Café This Way or the euphoria-inducing blueberry pancakes at Jordan’s.
Seafood is obviously a must-have here, too, and pretty much every restaurant will have clams, mussels, scallops, cod, and lobster on the menu—the way a restaurant interprets those ingredients is where things get interesting. Lompoc Café does Spicy Dijon Mussels and a Fishwich with spicy slaw. The aptly named Dinner does a killer lobster served with Jameson cream sauce and a braised leek risotto that isn’t traditionally Maine in a literal sense, but feels perfectly Maine at the same time. And if you’re up for it, Red Sky offers a rich risotto topped with the meat of an entire Maine lobster.
There have also been several surprising new additions to the island’s dining scene in recent years, like the authentic Latin fare at Havana (think scallop crudo, seafood paella, and a great mezcal list), as well as farm-to-table fare at Sweet Pea’s Farm Kitchen.
What to Do
Make sure to spend at least one day moseying from shop to shop in Bar Harbor, picking up tchotchkes at Sailor and Hook, grabbings some wood-carved figurines from In The Woods, and trying out all the quirky, house-made ice creams at Mount Desert Island Ice Cream. An afternoon cruise on the 4-masted Margaret Todd schooner is a glorious way to see the island’s landscape from the water.
If you love the outdoors, you will find a lifetime of adventures at Acadia National Park. First things first, be sure to drive the entire 27-mile Loop Road to get your bearings. The hiking trails here range from mild to wild: whether you want a low-key stroll following the coast along Sand Beach, or the thrilling Precipice Trail, which features cliffside ladders and plenty of exposure for your next adrenaline fix.
The cliffs here are particularly famous among rock-climbings buffs. Whether you’re a first-timer or a bona fide scrambler, consider hiring one of the guides at Atlantic Climbings School to take you out for the day and improve your skills—they’ll hit all the right spots. To see the park from a completely different angle, consider an afternoon paddling around at sea with one of the guides from National Park Sea Kayak Tours.
It’s an Acadia rite of passage to wake up early and hike Cadillac Mountain at sunrise (from May to October, it’s the first place the sun rises in America), but the crowds can often be overwhelming—you might be better off hiking the Beehive instead, a shorter route that feels a little more palatable for a 5 A.M. call time. Chances are, there won’t be a single other soul on your journey up or down. Just you, the sea, and the sunrise.
