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Halloween Express
FEATURED: All aboard the Conway Scenic Railroad’s Halloween Express!
Discover
There’s a special kind of magic to Maine in autumn. By September, the summer tourists thin out, the roadside ice cream shacks begin to close, and the air takes on that crisp edge that smells faintly of salt and woodsmoke. The trees, which seemed so green and endless in July, suddenly start to burn — scarlet maples, golden birches, and copper beeches lighting up the rocky coastline.
What makes Maine unique is that you don’t have to choose between foliage and seascapes. This is one of the few places in New England where you can have both in a single view: a stand of maples blazing red over a lobster boat, or an old white church steeple framed by tidal marshes turned gold.
Driving Maine’s coast in fall isn’t just a way to see scenery — it’s a way to step into the state’s layered history, where lighthouses, fishing villages, and farm fields all tell the story of a place shaped by both land and sea.
Here are three drives that capture the essence of a Maine autumn, from postcard-perfect peninsulas to the raw beauty of Acadia’s quiet side.
The Pemaquid Peninsula feels like the distilled essence of coastal Maine — rugged headlands, clapboard villages, and lobster traps stacked neatly by the shore. Start in Damariscotta, a small town with a big claim to fame: its annual pumpkin festival, where locals carve giant gourds into floating jack-o’-lanterns that bob down the river like something out of folklore.
From there, head south on Route 130. The drive is about 30 miles, but it unfolds like a painter’s palette. In early October, the maples arch overhead in crimson tunnels, while birches glow gold against the dark evergreens. To your right, the Damariscotta River sparkles in the fall light, dotted with oyster farms that have been a part of this landscape since the early 1800s.
The road ends at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, built in 1835 and one of the most photographed in Maine. The light itself is iconic — so much so that it appears on the back of the Maine state quarter. But the real drama is the geology: jagged granite ledges sloping down into the Atlantic, striped like old bones. On a clear fall day, the blue of the ocean, the blaze of the trees, and the stark white of the lighthouse form a tableau that feels timeless.
Local lore says that when storms rolled in during the 19th century, the lighthouse keeper’s wife would hang a lantern from the kitchen window to guide fishermen safely home, supplementing the official beacon with her own. Standing there today, with the wind carrying the scent of salt and pine, it’s easy to imagine that flicker in the darkness.
Most visitors to Acadia National Park head straight for Mount Desert Island, home to Bar Harbor and the famous Park Loop Road. But for those in the know, the Schoodic Peninsula offers an equally stunning — and far less crowded — alternative.
The 29-mile loop around Schoodic Point is one of the great unsung drives in New England. It winds past dense spruce forests, tidal pools, and granite cliffs that plunge directly into the sea. In autumn, the contrast is breathtaking: crimson maples against dark evergreens, scarlet sumac lining the roadside, and the Atlantic a restless, steel-blue backdrop.
The lore of Schoodic is one of solitude. Fishermen have long used this rugged coast as a place to set traps, but tourists largely overlooked it until the 20th century. Even now, it feels raw, untamed, and a little secret. Pull over at Schoodic Point, where waves pound the rocks with a sound like thunder. On a windy October day, the spray leaps twenty feet into the air, soaking anyone who dares get too close.
There’s something primal about it — the way the cliffs seem to absorb the power of the sea, the way the trees cling stubbornly to the ledges, the way the horizon stretches forever. If Mount Desert Island is Acadia’s face, Schoodic is its beating heart. And in autumn, that heart beats in red and gold.
For a shorter but equally memorable drive, head south from Thomaston along Route 131 into the St. George Peninsula. This is a drive through postcard Maine — working harbors, weathered boats, and saltbox houses that look like they’ve stood watch for centuries.
Tenants Harbor is the first stop, a village that feels like it’s been lifted from a Wyeth painting. In fact, it has — the Wyeth family, famous for their art, summered nearby, and their depictions of coastal Maine still shape how the world imagines this region. In autumn, the harbor glows with reflected foliage, while lobster boats chug in and out, hauling traps as they’ve done for generations.
Continue south to Port Clyde, a village that feels like the end of the earth. The road narrows, the trees press closer, and then suddenly the view opens onto the wide Atlantic. Here you’ll find Marshall Point Lighthouse, made famous in the film Forrest Gump. But beyond its Hollywood cameo, Marshall Point has been guiding mariners since 1832, its white tower a sentinel against the chaos of Penobscot Bay.
In October, the combination of lighthouse, sea, and flaming foliage is almost surreal — a reminder of how Maine balances its roles as both working coast and painter’s muse.
What makes these drives more than just pretty routes is the history they carry. Maine’s coast has always been its lifeline. Native Wabanaki tribes fished these waters for centuries before European settlers arrived. In the 18th and 19th centuries, shipbuilding boomed — forests of pine and oak were cut, milled, and launched as schooners that carried fish, lumber, and granite up and down the Atlantic.
Every village along these roads has stories buried in its soil. In Thomaston, ship captains built grand homes with widow’s walks where their wives scanned the horizon for returning vessels. In Damariscotta, oyster shells piled so high that middens from Native harvests still tower over the riverbank. In Port Clyde, locals say you can still hear the bells of ships lost in the fog.
And then there are the lighthouses — more than 60 dotting the coast, each with its own tales of storms, shipwrecks, and stubborn keepers who kept the lights burning through snow and gale. Driving in autumn, when the air is sharp and the light golden, it’s easy to see why these places inspire not just postcards but poetry.
Driving Maine’s coast in autumn is like stepping into a living painting. One moment you’re in a tunnel of scarlet leaves, the next you’re cresting a hill with the ocean spread wide below you. It’s not just about the scenery — it’s about the way land and sea collide, the way history lingers in every harbor and lighthouse, the way the season sharpens all the contrasts.
For me, Maine’s coast always feels like both an escape and a return. The salt air, the sight of lobster buoys bobbing against red foliage, the sound of gulls over a harbor — they’re not just sensory details, they’re reminders of how deeply place shapes memory.
From Damariscotta’s pumpkins to Port Clyde’s lighthouse, from Schoodic’s pounding surf to the quiet roads lined with stone walls, Maine in autumn is a reminder of something simple but profound: beauty doesn’t just exist in the grand vistas. It exists in the turn of a road, the curve of a river, the blaze of a single maple against the sea.
Roll down the window, breathe in the mix of salt and leaves, and let Maine’s coastal roads carry you into fall.
