Schoodic Peninsula: Acadia Without the Crowds

The Schoodic District of Acadia National Park — an hour's drive around Frenchman Bay or a seasonal ferry from Bar Harbor — is everything the main park is (granite, ocean, forest) with one difference: almost nobody goes there.

Schoodic Point: broad shelf of pink granite sloping to the Atlantic, nothing between it and Portugal. Rough days bring surf explosions thirty feet high. Calm days the water rises and falls with a sleeping giant's rhythm. The six-mile loop road has pulloffs each offering a different composition of rock, water, and spruce. Blueberry Hill has a short trail to a 360-degree summit — ocean south, Mount Desert Island west, blueberry barrens turning scarlet in autumn.

Free Island Explorer bus in summer connects ferry to loop road. No entrance fee for Schoodic. Pack lunch — one food option at the campground and it's modest. Time the visit for high tide when wave action at Schoodic Point is most theatrical. Bring layers. The point is exposed and honest about wind.