Activities For Children
If you are visiting Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park with young children, you will find lots of activities that they will enjoy. Here are just a few ideas:
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Poking Around Along The Shore - Most kids love to be outside, and they find the seashore especially interesting. There are few better places in the United States for children (of all ages) to experience the majesty of the great outdoors combined with a fascinating, rocky coastline. The range of the tide here averages 12 feet, and many sea creatures can be found in the area between high and low tide. Tide pools, small areas where sea water collects when the tide is out, are home to anemones, baby crabs, sponges, |
| an occasional sea cucumber, barnacles and a variety of other living things. The best places to look for tide pools are areas like Wonderland (off Route 102A past Seawall) where the shoreline is rocky and there are low ledges instead of high cliffs. Be careful - wet rocks are very slippery! | |
Junior Ranger Program - Acadia National Park, like most other national parks, conducts a great Junior Ranger program for kids eight years and older. A booklet outlining the required activities can be purchased for $1.95 at the Hulls Cove Park Visitor Center. Join the regularly scheduled ranger programs to complete various assignments, and then get your Junior Ranger certification. |
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Swimming - While most of the shoreline in this part of downeast Maine is high and rocky, there are a couple of sandy beach areas where swimming is both appropriate and fun - especially on warm summer days. The only sandy ocean beach is Sand Beach along the Park Loop Road. Here the crashing surf and spectacular scenery are major drawing cards, but the water is quite cold, even in mid summer. For those who prefer warmer water, the park operates a fresh water swimming beach at the southern end of Echo Lake.
Natural History Museum - The College of the Atlantic, just outside Bar Harbor on Route 3, offers a most interesting Natural History Museum which contains numerous displays of native wildlife in the Mount Desert area. Each animal, bird, etc. is shown life-sized in it's natural environment. There is also a tide pool where children and adults can actually handle (under supervision of museum staff) a variety of living inhabitants of coastal Maine waters.
Mount Desert Oceanarium - Very popular for school field trips, the Mount Desert Oceanarium operates two facilities. One includes both a lobster hatchery and outdoor salt marsh, and is located on Route 3 about one mile past the bridge at the head of Mount Desert Island. The second contains indoor touch tanks full of local sea life and is located near the lower town pier at the end of Clark Point Road in Southwest Harbor. The Oceanarium is open every day except Sundays during the season.
Boat Trips - Several boat trips operating from towns around the island are especially designed to be of interest to children. There are seal watching trips, trips which haul real lobster traps to see what they contain, trips on sailing schooners, and an underwater dive trip where children can help the divers suit up and watch them on the bottom by live video technology. See our Recreation section for more details on these trips, or stop by our visitor center just before you reach the bridge to Mount Desert Island to pick up brochures.
Horse Carriage Rides - During the season, a variety of horse carriage rides are available from Wildwood Stables along the Park Loop Road a couple of miles before you reach Jordan Pond. These rides are of varying lengths, start at various times of the day, and all are along the beautiful park carriage roads.
Pick Blueberries - Mount Desert Island is covered with Maine low-bush blueberries. From about mid-July through the month of August, the berries ripen and can be found along many of the trails in Acadia National Park. The best places to look are on the open, sunny slopes of mountains such as Champlain and Cadillac. Sitting in the sun with a great ocean view, picking and eating blueberries - what more can life offer?
Pack a Picnic - There are any number of wonderful spots to take a picnic lunch or dinner. While the park maintains several picnic areas around the island, you don't have to be restricted to them. Some of the best places are the ones where you or your children decide to stop and sit awhile. Later, finish it off with some yummy homemade ice cream from one of the many shops in Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor, or at the Jordan Pond House.
Acadia Information Center