BearX220

If you were to base in Freeport or Bath, there is a lot to see within a 90-minute drive of each... and you'd be returning at night to a town with restaurant options, not marooned in the middle of nowhere. Those are both good mid-coast bases. As I said earlier there's a good Hilton Garden Inn in Freeport, and there are other respectable choices in Bath. The one great recommended destination too far from those places to do as a day-trip is Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island. If you plan to stay up there over Memorial Day weekend reservations would be essential.

That can happen in Maine. I'd caution you not to book anywhere without reading some positive objective reviews online. And Analise took me to task for this observation in another thread, but I'll repeat that not all B&Bs in the region are child-friendly. I don't think you said how old your daughter is, but some of these places are old, creaky, and silent, and filled with guests who can be described likewise. Be fair to the girl, who I like already because of her views on lobster.

Lodging in Maine can be a bit of a gamble all the way around. At the junction of US 1 and Route 27, the road to the Boothbay peninsula, there is a place called the Cod Cove Inn. Must sound great in The New York Times travel section. But as my brother and I joked for years driving past it... there are no cod, there is no cove, and it's not an inn -- it's a motel overlooking Maine's most-traveled, congested, bumper-to-bumper trunk road. Crafty marketers, those Downeasters.

WIRunner

Bangor is easily within an hour of MDI (and close to Moosehead Lake) Drive is pretty nice too, and there's plenty of lil restaurants along the way.

hitherandyon

I've been looking up hotels and B&B's - wow, there's a lot to think about.

Guess my daughter and I will get pen and paper and decide how to go
about this and where to stay.

hitherandyon

Not to worry, daughter is all grown up....I'll tell her about your concerns for her!

Next week I have to go to Seattle and have reservations at the Lake House
Inn in Bellevue WA.....if it's anything like the pictures....we'll be really happy.
It was featured in a magazine....can't wait to hang out there.

hitherandyon

What's your thoughts on Hwy. 1 - I wanted to use it most to see the small towns rather than the expressway. Would it be lots of traffic no matter
which we took?

I wanted to go for 5-6 days on a different weekend - she's the one that
insisted on Memorial Day...work, you know.

Analise

On Memorial Day weekend and weekends afterwards through Labor Day weekend? Route 1 will be VERY slow. On regular weekdays, it should be fine. If your plans don't change and you will be traveling from Friday to Monday of Memorial Day weekend, do your long distance driving on 295 and 95.

BearX220

It really depends on how far north you are going. From the NH border up through Portland, use the Maine Turnpike. From Portland, stick with the coast: take I-295 to Falmouth and Freeport. Then, a few miles north of Freeport, you leave I-295 (which loops pointlessly back north and inland, taking you nowhere of interest) and follow U.S. 1 up the coast to all the destinations previously discussed: Brunswick, Bath, Wiscasset, Boothbay (turn off on Rte. 27), Damariscotta, Waldoboro, Rockport, Belfast, etc., etc.

On the one hand U.S. 1 takes you through one charming town after another. On the other hand, as the only trunk road, period, it can be impassable on summer weekends, turning what you hoped would be a bucolic scenic coastal drive into a slice of hell.

The road itself is not especially beautiful actually -- between the village high streets it's a mixture of featureless scrub pine and low-rent retail (car dealerships, big-box marts, etc.). The traffic snafus occur because U.S. 1 is ten-mile straightaways designed for 60-70 mph punctuated by slow, snaky bits in thickly settled villages where you can't exceed 15 mph. So when volume picks up you can crawl for miles at walking speed waiting to pass through a village. The Wiscasset bit, where you snake through the village then bound down a grade to join a long two-lane bridge across the Sheepscot River, used to be excruciating for motorists until they replaced the bridge a few years ago, permitting slightly faster passage. It's STILL pretty bad, which is why Red's Eats at the foot of the bridge does so well in summertime. Carloads of people at their wit's end pile out at Red's saying the hell with it and drop $100 on lobster rolls and Cokes trying to get their good humor back.

It takes a lot longer than you'd think to cover ground in coastal Maine this way -- think 30 or 40 miles per hour on average, less on the weekends, as compared to the 60 or 70 mph you compute for freeway travel. Plan modestly, stay off the road weekend afternoons... in fact try to do your driving in the morning before the road thickens up.

I should note that if you wanted to push all the way up to Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island, direct, U.S. 1 is not the fastest route by any means. in that case you'd stick with the Maine Turnpike inland, all the way to Bangor / Brewer, then drop down to the coast via U.S. 1A via Ellsworth. (The coast kind of rises to meet you as you travel northeast.) A dull and unscenic drive but hours faster than chugging along the coast on U.S. 1. Perhaps you might think of doing a loop, zipping up to Acadia this way, seeing Bar Harbor, Mt. Cadillac and the national park which are all wonderful, then driving U.S. 1 south along the coast during non-weekend days?

WIRunner

Portland to Bangor via 1 in January takes about 3 to 3.5 hours
Portland to Bangor via 295/95 takes roughly 2 hours (I've done it in less, but watch out for the state patrol around Augusta, they've taken to the air).

ibor132

I'm local to PWM and have a few thoughts. I'm lousy at suggesting touristy stuff (I will throw in a pitch for Portland, def. do not skip on your way up the cost) so I'll defer to the others on that sort of thing, but from a logistical perspective (I do IT for a company with 46 sites around the state, so I have to travel around quite a bit)...

- I agree entirely with the others who suggested reservations. Memorial Day weekend is the "kickoff" of tourist season, and thusly everything is jammed with summer residents as well as weekend tourists. You could perhaps get away with this in the Portland area (though you might end up in a boring chain hotel in the 'burbs) and perhaps Bangor. Elsewhere it would be a very dicey business.

- Route 1 is, mostly, a very pretty drive but as other have said it can back up to an extreme degree. The same can be said for the local routes that link from US1 to some of the larger tourist areas (offhand, ME27 to the Boothbay/Boothbay Harbor area, and ME3 though Ellsworth and into Bar Harbor/MDI).

My suggestion (assuming you decide to visit one or more of the coastal towns, which I would tend to suggest doing), would be to use freeways (I95/I295) whenever possible, and get your dose of US1 on the trip to and from those towns. The freeways are generally pretty clear even during the busiest weekend (with the possible exception of 95 from the border up through Portland, and even then it's not THAT bad), whereas US1 can be a parking lot.

I agree with the recommendation to take 95 to US1A to access Ellsworth/Bar Harbor/MDI. That is the highest capacity route by far, although the final stretch on ME3 from Ellsworth to most of MDI can be slow/busy as well as deceptively long (if you need to use a restroom or get gas, there are a number of unremarkable but well placed gas stations and stores in the final stretch through Ellsworth).

Speaking personally, I had to make a service call to our site in Bar Harbor a couple of days before July 4, left my apartment in Portland at 4AM to get ahead of the tourists, and still found downtown Bar Harbor to be packed when I arrived at 7:15. (I did beat the traffic, but I could see it starting to filter in when I got back to Ellsworth at 9 or so).

An alternative route to that area is to take 95 to the Augusta area, then exit to ME3, and follow that across to Belfast and it's junction with US1, then follow the concurrent US1/ME3 north. This will take you across the Penobscot Narrows Bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobs...nd_Observatory), which I personally think is a really neat and attractive piece of engineering. It also bypasses many of the tourist town bottlenecks further south.

One more note - when heading Augusta north, it's generally preferable to use 295 vs 95 when possible (295 is a spur running from South Portland to Gardiner) as it's not tolled and is (in my personal opinion) better maintained. 95 also takes a slightly longer and more boring route on that stretch.

hitherandyon

Can't tell you how much I appreciate this - gives me a better idea of what to plan for as far as timing our escapades. Going that slow would drive me crazy - better, like you said to use the turnpike more.

hitherandyon

I should have gone with my first thought and not on a Holiday weekend!
I will certainly use your suggestions - this is exactly what I was looking
for - I didn't want to start this journey all happy and find myself in the
doldrums bumper to bumper.

I'll look for places to lay our heads at night, and take to 295 when we can to get to places faster.

I was looking at foodnetwork for a road map looking for not to be missed
places to eat - so many places, so little time.

Analise

Also, 295 is the free interstate past Portland heading to Augusta. Have fun planning your trip!

WIRunner

There's one toll just before Augusta, right where it goes back into 95. it is $1, and has an ezpass/ipass lane.

ibor132

There's actually a trick to avoid this toll, if you're going from 295 NB to 95 NB (and don't have an ezpass) - exit to the West Gardiner service plaza (last exit before the toll, bear left at the end of the ramp), and just as you enter the building there are kiosks which will print a toll voucher that will cover the cost of the toll. They are ostensibly for folks who came in on 95 who are continuing onward, but I have never had an issue using them coming on from 295 (there is no way to tell where you came from once you exit, as the same plaza serves both freeways).

Unfortunatly this trick doesn't work southbound, as the service plaza exit is after the toolboths.

Obviously a selective call as to whether it's worth the effort to save a $1 toll - I personally just integrate it into my routine and take the opportunity to stop for a coffee.

Analise

That's the toll to get back on 95/Maine Turnpike after 295 ends.

Interesting. I'll still pay the $1 on my EZ Pass but always good to know. Thanks.