Acadia National Park is a 3 hour drive from Portland if you're down for that. Acadia is beautiful. Boothbay Harbor is less than an hour and a half and is a nice town on the water and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens are there.

You could also look at Kennebunkport/Wells/Ogunquit. That's about 30ish minutes south of Portland. Start off with donuts at Congdon's in Wells, go to Ogunquit for lunch and a walk on the Marginal Way, go see Nubble Light in York, then head back up to Kennebunkport for shopping and dinner.

Wife and I did this a 2 years ago.
Acadia National Park is awesome and Bar Harbor is a cool little town.
There are a lot of cool lighthouses and other parks around.

Just be aware Portland ME has about the same homeless and meth issues as Portland OR so be careful.

I was there this past fall. Portland was fine for us, stayed in town and walked around no issues. There is a food and beer scene there, worth having some options that stand out to you in advance. Did a nice morning walk out to Rose Foods for bagels, it's a fun stop.

Hwy 1 along the coast is a nice drive and quaint little towns about every 30min to break it up. Great day to road trip and stop along the way for ice cream, lobster, shopping… just stopping where ever looks fun.


I would suggest going south toward Kennebuck, you can look at the map and go right to coast and if traffic is bad pop back out to 1, all along those routes are places to eat see and do, it a coastal vacation area.

If you and crew are into theatre, might be worth pushing down to Oginquit, there is a historic theater there. It's a regional thing.

North to Freeport is the LL Bean Headquarters and other retailers, nothing you couldn't find anywhere else, but the Bean stores are fun if you are into that kind of thing.

Acadia and surrounding it great, may be a bit much for an out and back to Portland.

I underestimated this part of country and really enjoyed it, have fun.
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