The wife and I heading to Maine for a trip and possibly the coast. At the moment have no plans but to start in Maine and see where the road takes us. The wife is in charge of when and where we finish. We are looking for ideas of places to see and places of good food. We are just looking for a relaxing time to just enjoy. She likes the early sunrise and the sunsets. For hotels just a clean bed is fine and don't mind staying in non chain hotels

 

A few years back we rode up route 1 from portsmouth nh to bangor maine.looking at the map it looks like it rides tight to the coast,it dosen't.but all in all it still was a great ride even though we hardly saw the ocean.stayed the night in bangor(don't remember the hotel)then went down to bar harbor.nice place but that day it was raining a little and the clouds were very low.we wanted to go up cadillac mountain(i think thats the name)but not that day the top half of the mountain was in the clouds.they say the view is amazing.but it was still a great ride.spent the night back in bangor and the next day headed out.We jumped on route 2 across maine,new hampshire ,vermont over to stowe vt.now thats a great ride ,weather was fantastic.also if your riding route 1 make sure you stop at l.l.bean in freeport.one whole building(there's 3 ) is return goods at sometimes half price.

 

Most stuff on the coast is non chain--July and August will hurt your wallet--We just got back today from a week on the Maine coast--seems this year tourist travel is down[been going to Maine for 25+ yrs] The sandy beach areas are crowded as oppossed to the rocky beaches,so choose your poison.Try Bar Harbor/Cadilac Mt for a day but stay in Trenton just outside of Bar harbor,south on rt1 will not really hug the coast ,but you can find hotel/motels/b+b on the way---do a google search in areas that interest you--there,s a lobster roll on every corner

 

We were up there last year. hi way 1 gets congested at times. Lot of great places to see along the coast, but it is roads out and back up to the hi way. We enjoyed boothbay harbor and Camden. Lot of the points along the coast full of great houses, bay views, local food. You have to find the local hotels and or stay inland for better deals. Searching the chain websites is no good. Tons of Canadian visitors come down. Everyone said go 'downeast' to Acadia park, but we didn't get that far.

Inland is great country, mountains, many of the roads suffer from snowplow abuse. We loved the New Hampshire Mt Washington, Conway area and across into Vermont.

 

Acadia National Park is real nice too

 

Try to include some time in upstate New York. At the least the I88 if your in a hurry to get where your going. Also if you have time and can include hwy 7 in Vermont would be nice. This is not a fast road. A lot of small quaint towns along this road. That is, if you need to do quaint. Almost everything along this route is mom and pop. I did not stop in Maine on our way to Canada except in Bangor on our way back.

 

The thing that amazed us riding route one in maine was there are no big box stores,With the exception of L. BEAN.As rutroo says"all mom & pop places"all in old gas stations and or old houses.I'm from western NY and ya just don't see that any more.

 

We are starting our return leg of our trip. Michigan to Maine and back. Currently we are in the Cape Cod area and plan on traveling through tje Adirondacks on the way back. Can anyone suggest couple of nice places to stay. Trying to keep it around 100, hopefully under a hundy.

 

maine do madawaska it is the furthest most northern point in the us. small town and you can look it up as one of the 4 corner motorcycle ride . Great monument that you can drive the bike to for pictures. Highly recommend it

 

Just don't ask for directions from a local. "Sorry fella', but ya' can't get thea from hea."