Moon Handbook Coastal Maine: Including Acadia National Park (Moon Handbooks)

Moon's classic black-and-white series wins again for those us who are independent, detail-oriented travelers who like to plan our own journey. I have previously used the black/white Mexico City, South Korea, Yellowstone, and Panama guides. Just like those, this guide is the step-by-step journey planner, even if you are just doing part of the Maine coast. The guide starts in the Portland area and has separate sections for each region that ends in the Canadian border area. This was helpful because it made it easy for me to plan drives out from Bar Harbor down to the mid-Maine coastal towns, taking into account exactly what the points of interest are along the way and giving fairly honest feedback on each. This was helpful to pinpoint areas people don't typically notice, like Blue Hill or Castine. So essentially, the whole thing reads like one giant, beautiful road trip. The only critique I had was for the restaurant selections - I guess most of use Tripadvisor, Yelp or word of mouth these days anyhow, but most non-Mainers heading up there are probably looking for local seafood. The guide ended up suggesting places like pizzerias and sushi restaurants, when what we really wanted to find were the best lobster shacks! This guide is great if you plan to do a bit of driving around for your Maine trip - if you are just hopping into Acadia, a map will suffice and you probably don't need this guide.

The unique personality of each town along the coast comes through vividly. I was able to map out an itinerary built around the things that interest me most – rewarding museums, fun shopping, picturesque architecture and dramatic coastal scenery... Those interested in beaches, golf courses and lighthouses will also get the guidance they need in these pages.The listings and descriptions of lodgings are excellent and offer something for everyone – families on a budget or couples in search of romantic ambience and gourmet dinners. Great restaurants are noted, as well as obscure lobster shacks. There are hotels, bed & breakfasts, historic inns and some campgrounds included.This is not primarily a picture book, although there are some color photos, but I wanted information, not pictures, so I had problem with this. The mostly black and white photos throughout are enough to convey the charm of coastal Maine. The maps are simple but helpful for planning. You'll still need a real map to drive from town to town.I bought a handful of other guidebooks, but this is the one I found most helpful.

I've been using this guide to plan a two-week to coastal Maine and have found it very helpful, with good information on all the sights to see/things to do. I like Moon guides because they don't list a huge number of hotels and restaurants, but focus on the sights. The author has a point of view, which I like, and if you don't you can at least tell when she's expressing her opinion. Even though navigating around this area looks like a nightmare, the book is organized such that I think it'll help.

This book has so many "locals only" insights and information on hidden gems that I cannot imagine taking a trip along the Maine coast without it. This book aided in our trip planning and proved very helpful as we traveled along the Maine coast from Kittery to Lubec. I would highly recommend this book for any traveler to Maine, from first time visitors to Maine vacation veterans. First timers will get insightful information to plan and veterans will certainly find lesser known attractions and activities.

This book was by our side during a 3-week vacation in Maine and it came home with us with many dog-eared pages and highlighted entries. The suggestions for tourist sites were accurate and well written. Thanks to this guidebook, we found the most awesome place to stay in Lubec (West Quoddy Station House) through this guidebook and that became a top highlight of our trip.

As typical Moon guides go, this one is just as good. It is always great to have a local, studied perspective when you are approaching travel in an unfamiliar area. This guide is very good!

I used this guidebook for a vacation in Maine summer 2015, and it provided lots of insight and information about places to go. I really like Moon guides. They are one of my favorite guidebook series. I felt this provided plenty of information for my trip to Maine.

Enjoyed reading this book. Should come in very handy for our upcoming Maine vacation. Can't wait to visit many of the places mentioned in this book. Well worth the money!

Sehr informatives Buch über Maine! Tolle Informationen über Restaurants und Sightseeing. Jetzt kann der Urlaub losgehen. Mehr Infos über den Urlaub später.

Very good informative book

as described