Maine’s Midcoast peninsulas: Bath to Pemaquid and Owls Head

Route description

US-1 crosses the necks of the Midcoast peninsulas, and the best of this coast lies at the end of the side roads. Leave Portland on I-295 and US-1 north through Freeport to Bath, about 50 minutes, where Bath Iron Works still builds navy destroyers on the Kennebec. The Maine Maritime Museum, just south of downtown, covers the city’s great era of wooden shipbuilding.

ME-209 runs about 25 km down the Phippsburg peninsula to Popham Beach State Park. Walk the wide beach to Fox Island at low tide, but keep an eye on the incoming water, and see the granite Fort Popham at the river mouth nearby. Parking is limited and fills by late morning in July and August. Return to US-1, cross the Kennebec and turn south at Wiscasset onto ME-27 for Boothbay Harbor.

Boothbay Harbor is a busy boating town with puffin and whale-watching cruises in summer, and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens lie just outside it. Then drive back to US-1 and take ME-129 and ME-130 down the Pemaquid peninsula from Damariscotta, known for its oysters, to Pemaquid Point, where the lighthouse stands above tilted rock ledges.

Continue north on US-1 through Waldoboro and Thomaston to Rockland, home of the Farnsworth Art Museum and a long granite breakwater with a lighthouse at the end, then turn off to Owls Head Light on its bluff over Penobscot Bay. Camden, with its harbor full of windjammers, is 15 minutes further. The route is about 270 km; side roads are narrow and summer weekends are busy, so plan RV parking ahead.