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As Acadia National Park welcomes more visitors every year — the park recorded more than 4 million visits in 2025 — some locals and tourists prefer the park’s quieter, lesser known attractions, the spots that aren’t often advertised by tour guides and park rangers.
During the park’s peak visitor season, roughly between June and October, the park and many surrounding communities on Mount Desert Island — most notably Bar Harbor, wherein much of the park lies — are packed with tourists and summer residents.
But with approximately 47,000 acres in Acadia, there are still quite a few spots where locals and visitors can enjoy the park’s beauty without facing the summertime crowds.
Schooner Head Road shore access
Spots to access the shore in Acadia — specifically those close to Bar Harbor, like the Sand Beach and Bar Island — can become particularly crowded as temperatures rise.
For a quiet afternoon by the water’s edge this spring and summer, several trails offering secluded shore access dot the eastern side of Schooner Head Road. Just past downtown Bar Harbor — on the opposite side from the Jackson Laboratory — a few trailheads stretch roughly 900 feet to the shoreline.
The moss-covered paths lead to the island’s iconic rocky coastline, where a small bench overlooks a serene pocket of Frenchman Bay and The Thrumcap, a small uninhabited park island.
Baker Island
Among the park’s lesser known attractions is Baker Island, a 162-acre island at the southwestern mouth of Frenchman Bay. Accessible only by boat and part of the Town of Cranberry Isles, the island is one of the park’s more remote sections, though a sandbar connects it to Little Cranberry Island at low tide.
For years up until 2024, a local boat company offered a ranger-led cruise from Bar Harbor where visitors could experience the island’s natural and historical landmarks, including a 19th-century homestead and one of the oldest operating lighthouses in the region.
However, since last year, visitors now must rely on their own boats — though there are no public moorings along the island’s shore — or charter private water taxis to reach the island. The island can also be accessed by kayak, though that’s recommended only for experienced sea kayakers, according to the conservation nonprofit Keepers of Baker Island.
Because the island has been the site of at least nine recorded shipwrecks, residents have reported discovering remnants of past boats, according to the park.
There are two private residences on the island, according to a video assembled by the park service after the tour boat cruises ceased operation.
Airplane wreckage
For visitors with darker curiosities, the wreckage of a single-engine airplane — crashed more than 50 years ago and never removed — has become one of Acadia’s more obscure, but unofficial, attractions.
On June 30, 1970, retired Air Force Capt. Robert McGuann disappeared while piloting a small Piper airplane from Boston to Newfoundland, Canada. McGuann’s crashed plane was later recovered in Acadia, where some of the wreckage has remained ever since.
Although the park doesn’t publicize the spot, which is near the summit of Cedar Swamp Mountain, the crash site has become popular with some history buffs and thrill seekers who want to examine the plane’s rusting debris.
Because the park does not promote the site — and some visitors view it as an unofficial memorial site to McGuann — the Bangor Daily News is not releasing its exact location.
Schoodic Institute path
Although the Schoodic Peninsula — often cited as the park’s quieter region — has also seen a rise in visitors in recent years, plenty of isolated corners remain.
Starting at the Schoodic Institute — a former Navy base at Schoodic Point converted into a nonprofit research hub — the Sundew Trail offers visitors a 0.7-mile path through dense forest to a quiet stretch of coastline with sunset views toward MDI. It offers an uncrowded alternative to Schoodic Point, which is often suggested for first-timers venturing out to the park’s only mainland section.
Ravens Nest
Ravens Nest, also on the Schoodic Peninsula, is a stretch of steep, jagged cliffs meeting the Frenchman Bay, a spot that’s become popular among photographers chasing dramatic sunsets over the Gulf of Maine.
An unmarked path off Schoodic Loop Road, between Frazer Point and Mountain Road, leads to Ravens Nest. Social media users who have visited the site have reported that the cliffs overlooking the inlet are high and steep — as are many other cliffs in Acadia — so visitors should exercise caution when approaching the overlook.