Ideas for a week in Maine?

[Tokie]

this year is the last leg of our (2 weeks at a time) ride across the US (with America by Bicycle)! We start in Niagara Falls, and finish 7 days later in Portsmouth New Hampshire. From there, we will be responsible for ourselves - bikes and luggage (the tour hauls our luggage ) So we will need a shuttle and/or rental car from that point on. We are thinking of staying in one place and taking rides - or not. I really have no idea! At some point before we leave, we'll need to find a bike shop or motel to ship our bike boxes ahead to after unpacking our bikes at Niagara Falls. Then before we fly home, we'll box up the bikes and ship them back. Any suggestions on logistics/places to ride/places to see? thanks for any suggestions! tokie

[ridebikeme]

Maine is defintiely a great place to ride! One of the great attractions in the state is Bar Harbor, with its famous loop road and of course the climb to the top of Cadillac. Another great source for routes is the booklet that DOT has published each year... it gives you lots of maps for different areas of the state with lodging, shops etc included.

Sounds like a great time, good luck with the end of your ride! Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you!!

[Crankin]

Portsmouth is an awesome small city. Lots of good restaurants and shops. I've done a ride that goes from Portsmouth to York Beach, Maine a couple of times. You can ride by the ocean (all 18 miles of NH coastline) and then head inland, where there's rolling hills and farms.
I'd also suggest the Camden area of Maine. Challenging riding, hiking, etc.

[Biciclista]

eat lobster every day.

[Tokie]

Thanks everyone! I'm taking notes! Not really a lobster fan - but have vowed to at least have a "lobster roll" ! and I guess we'll be flying home from the Boston airport, so maybe will see a bit of Boston too....? Looking forward to seeing your part of the country! tokie

[Cataboo]

Mount Desert island/ Acadia national park is really gorgeous. If you said you wanted to go kayaking - I would have a ton of suggestions of where you should do that. Mount Desert does have some gorgeous hiking & some nice roads for biking.


if you have a bunch of camping gear with you already and want to go kayak camping, I'd say go to:
http://www.oldquarry.com/
You can rent boats or hire an outfitter & that's on the deer island archipelago - so if you stay in the inner islands, it's only 1-2 miles between every island, and you can hike around. The inner islands are fairly protected from the weather.

There's 2 sets of photos of kayaking around maine in my picasaweb - just scroll down & hit see more photos after the first batch:
https://picasaweb.google.com/immunogirl
Sept 2010 has 4 or 5 albums of Maine & so does August of 2009.