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Acadia’s weather forecast doesn’t always provide ideal vacation conditions, but there are still several ways to enjoy the park on a rainy day — and stay relatively dry.
Rain is in the forecast nearly every day of the long weekend and into next week at Acadia National Park, where tourist season is approaching full swing. While many of the park’s tourists can spend a rainy day browsing shops or catching a movie in Bar Harbor, there’s still many ways to see Acadia on an overcast day.
Ride the Island Explorer
Acadia’s free shuttle system, which began its spring service on May 20 and will start all summer routes by June 23, offers visitors a dry and comfortable way to tour Mount Desert Island and the Schoodic Peninsula.
The air-conditioned buses, fashioned with large windows, run from several sites including the park’s new $27 million Acadia Gateway visitor center in Trenton — where visitors can park their car for the day —and through Bar Harbor, stopping along the way at various campgrounds, hotels and the Hulls Cover Visitor Center.
The 34-fleet shuttle system, which last year received 72% of its funding from park entrance pass revenue, provides 11 routes throughout the park.
Visitors can ride the shuttle’s Park Loop Road route, which begins at the Hulls Cove visitors center, that passes through some of the road’s most iconic attractions, including Sand Beach, Thunder Hole — where rough seas make for particularly dramatic waves — Otter Cliff and Jordan Pond. The full ride takes about an hour and a half.
Visit Sieur de Monts Nature Center
One of the park’s most popular indoor attractions is the Sieur de Monts Nature Center, also a stop on the shuttle’s Park Loop Road route.
The visitors center, which sits next to the Wild Gardens of Acadia and nearby the park’s largest wetland, the Great Meadow, carries multiple exhibits about the “science behind the scenery,” according to the park service.
The nature center has park rangers on duty to answer questions and offer a “junior ranger station” with activities for kids.
It’s also been the site of several climate change-related displays that were removed in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order instructing the park service to pull messaging that could distract from the “grandeur of the American landscape.” A federal judge has since ordered the signs be restored, and exhibits discussing the impacts of climate change were on display at the nature center earlier this week.
Now, the center’s exhibits explore how rising sea levels and harsher storms affect offshore island habitats and how the warming climate impacts Maine’s boreal trees, among other topics.
Take tea and popovers at Jordan Pond
The shuttle service’s Park Loop Road route also stops at the iconic Jordan Pond House Restaurant, where tea and popovers have been served since the 1800s.
The restaurant and gift shop complex, which park officials previously said would need to be replaced because of its deteriorating condition, gives visitors a historic dining spot with views of Jordan Pond and The Bubbles mountains.
Travel the quieter carriage roads
Acadia has 45-miles of rustic carriage roads — a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his family — some of which can get busy over the summer’s peak tourist season. But when rainy days bring fewer tourists into the park, the carriage roads offer miles of accessible trails, many sections of which are covered by tree canopy.
The smooth broken stone trails, designed by Rockefeller in the first half of the 20th century, provide ideal conditions for rainy day hiking. Rain can also transform Acadia: visitors often note the blanket of fog on an overcast day is an entirely different park experience.
Visit the Abbe Museum
Although no longer located in Acadia, the Abbe Museum deserves an honorable mention for rainy day activities that explore the park’s cultural history. The museum, now located in downtown Bar Harbor, was first opened in Acadia’s Sieur de Monts Spring by Bar Harbor summer resident and New York physician Dr. Robert Abbe in August 1928.
The Smithsonian affiliate has since become a cultural and education hub focused on honoring and preserving the history of indigenous people. The museum’s permanent exhibit centers around the Wabanaki, who have lived in the area for thousands of years.
Remember that Maine’s coastal weather can fluctuate, and be prepared to pivot accordingly.