12 Best Sights in The Mid-Coast Region, Maine

This small museum housed in a stately building on Bowdoin's main quad features one of the oldest permanent collections of art in the United States. The more than 20,000 objects include paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and works on paper. They range from Ancient, European, Asian, and Indigenous works to modern and contemporary art. The museum often mounts well-curated, rotating exhibitions and has programs for getting children excited about art.

Reserve your admission tickets in advance online (required), and set aside a couple of hours to explore New England's largest botanical garden, where, depending on the time of year, you can stroll amid the lupines, rhododendrons, or roses. Regardless of the season, you'll encounter the site's biggest (literally and figuratively) draws: the five gigantic and utterly irresistible trolls constructed by Danish artist Thomas Danbo using scrap wood and other found materials that are placed in wooded areas throughout the 323-acre grounds.

The children's garden is a wonderland of stone sculptures, rope bridges, small teahouse-like structures with grass roofs, and even a hedge maze. Children and adults alike adore the separate woodland fairy area. The Garden of the Five Senses lets you experience flora through much more than just sight. Inside the main building are a café, grab-and-go market, shop, and resource library. During the holiday season, the gardens mount a dazzling, nighttime Gardens Aglow show, with 650,000 LED bulbs lighting up the darkness.

Comfortable walking shoes are a must, but, if you'd prefer not to walk everywhere, there's free shuttle service to several key locales. In addition, free, hour-long, docent-led tours of the central gardens leave from the visitor center at 11 each day from May through October. There's also a one-hour golf cart tour ($10; free on Wednesday).

Founded in 1912 after its namesake invented the iconic hunting boot, L.L. Bean began as a mail-order merchandiser with a creaky old retail store. Today, the giant flagship store attracts more than 3 million visitors annually. Open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, it is the anchor in the heart of Freeport's outlet-shopping district. You can still find the original hunting boots, along with cotton and wool sweaters; outerwear of all kinds; casual clothing, boots, and shoes for men, women, and kids; and camping equipment. Nearby are the company's home furnishings store and its bike, boat, and ski store. Don't miss the chance to snap a photo with the 16½-foot-tall statue of its signature rubber boot outside the main entrance, or visit its discount outlet, across the street in the Freeport Village Station mall.

No trip to Bath is complete without visiting the cluster of preserved 19th- and early 20th-century buildings that were once part of the historic Percy & Small Shipyard. Plan to spend at least half a day exploring them and the adjacent modern museum. Indeed, there's so much to see that admission tickets are good for two days.

During hour-long shipyard tours, you'll learn how massive wooden ships were built, and you might see shipwrights and blacksmiths at work. One of the vintage buildings houses a fascinating, 6,000-square-foot lobstering exhibit. In the main building ship models, paintings, photographs, and artifacts showcase maritime history. The grounds also contain a gift shop and bookstore; a seasonal café; and a huge, modern sculpture representing the 450-foot-long, six-masted schooner Wyoming, built right here and one of the longest wooden vessels ever launched. 

From late May through late October, daily nature and lighthouse cruises, ranging from 30 minutes to three hours, are offered aboard the motor vessel Merrymeeting, which travels along the scenic Kennebec River. The museum also has guided tours of Bath Iron Works (June–mid-October). 

About a mile from Port Clyde's town landing (turn off Route 131 at the sign), this 31-foot, granite and brick lighthouse has been in operation since it was erected in 1858 to replace an earlier tower whose beacon was fueled by lard. It is perhaps best known as the spot where Tom Hanks, aka Forrest Gump, concluded the eastern end of his very long cross-country run in the 1994 film adaptation of the book by the same name. As you walk out on the short footbridge to the light, resist the urge to shout, "Run, Forrest, Run!" There's also a small museum and gift shop, housed in the 1895 lightkeepers' house. Exhibits focus on local granite quarrying and lobstering as well as the lighthouse. The serene grounds have a few picnic tables and offer beautiful views of the sea; it's a perfect spot for watching pleasure and fishing vessels cruise in and out of Port Clyde harbor.

There's something to be said for enjoying a cold beer after a long hike. You can slake your thirst at a seasonal tap "room" (seating is actually outdoors beneath umbrellas and tents) of this tiny brewery owned by a local lobstering family. Options could include Crow's Nest IPA, Balmy Days Citra Kölsch, or Mad Cow Milk Stout. There might also be icy cold root beer, and you can get lunch to go at the on-site Bait Bag food trailer.

Think Maine is cold in the winter? Try the Arctic, where two of Bowdoin’s most famous alumni, Admiral Robert E. Peary (class of 1877) and explorer Donald B. MacMillan (class of 1898), spent considerable time. As a result, the college has both an Arctic Studies program and this museum, which is in the imposing Neo-Gothic Hubbard Hall.

Although controversy rages regarding whether it was Frederick Cook (in 1908) or Peary (in 1909) who first made it to the North Pole (or whether either man ever made it there at all), the museum has some of the principal artifacts from Peary's expedition, including his notebook page that reads “The pole at last!!!” and the American flag that he unfurled on reaching it. Among the many interesting things you'll learn is that Peary’s assistant, an African American named Matthew Henson, was the only other man with him when he reached the pole—and Henson was actually in the lead.

MacMillan, who made more than 30 trips to the Arctic over the course of almost 50 years, extensively documented both the region and its peoples. He also named one of his expedition schooners after the college. (The Bowdoin is now the flagship training vessel of the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine). The museum's collection includes many of his photographs and films, as well as memorabilia, artifacts, and historical and contemporary Inuit, Yup’ik, and Iñupiat art. Changing exhibitions have showcased everything from changing Arctic climate conditions to Inuit music to traditional kayak construction.

At the very end of Route 130, this lighthouse at the tip of the Pemaquid Peninsula looks as though it sprouted from the ragged, striated granite outcroppings on which it stands. Most days in the summer you can climb the tower to the light. The former keeper's cottage is now the Fishermen's Museum, which displays historic photographs, scale models, and artifacts that explore commercial fishing in Maine. The original fog bell and bell house are also here. Restrooms and picnic tables are available.

At the tip of the Phippsburg Peninsula, Popham Beach State Park faces the open Atlantic between the mouths of the Kennebec and Morse rivers. At low tide, you can walk several miles of tidal flats and also out to small Fox Island, where you can explore tide pools or fish off the ledges (pay attention to the incoming tide unless you want to swim back). Shifting sand and beach and sea dynamics have led to dramatic erosion here, and, in recent years, the sea has taken a big bite out of the beach. There are picnic tables, plus a bathhouse, showers, and toilets. About a mile from the beach, the road ends at the Civil War–era Fort Popham State Historic Site, an unfinished semicircular granite fort overlooking the sea. The site of the Popham Colony, an early 1600s English settlement, is also nearby. Enjoy beach views and some fresh seafood at nearby Spinney's Restaurant. 

Perched at the top of a small island off the mouth of the Kennebec River, this cylindrical stone tower is one of the state’s prettiest and most imposing—it rises 52 feet above an already high headland. There's a small museum in the keeper's house, and the guest quarters can be rented. Camping is also permitted at the base of the lighthouse, and there are hiking trails. Access is by a short ferry ride from Fort Popham in Phippsburg. 

The secluded 70-acre Whitehead Island, located in the western mouth of West Penobscot Bay, is home to this lighthouse, which was commissioned in 1803 and rebuilt in 1852 and which continues as a beacon for boaters. The seven-bedroom keeper’s house can be rented on a weekly basis June through October, or adults can attend one of the onsite programs that are offered. Rates include transportation to the island in a light station boat.