As the numbers of tourists who come to Bar Harbor each year remain at all-time highs, many Mainers who want to visit the town and Acadia National Park are deciding to stay away.
For some Mainers, the impact of the seasonal crowds is now enough to keep them away year-round. They may not like visiting Acadia even in the quiet of winter, when many park roads are closed and trails can be icy, or they may feel like the island’s vibe has changed to be less welcoming to Mainers, regardless of the time of year.
“I don’t go there anymore. Period,” said Lindsay Theis of Augusta. “Too much of a headache!”
Many others have started avoiding the island in the thick of summer, when throngs of people are out on Bar Harbor’s sidewalks and Acadia’s trails, instead making the trip in early spring or late fall.
“After COVID, it changed a lot,” said Regina Helfer of Freeport who, with her husband Larry Helfer and their three dogs, recently visited Bar Harbor for the weekend.
The couple, who make a point of visiting Acadia twice or more each year, visited Bar Harbor later in the fall of 2020 — when visits started to soar as people concerned about the virus sought ways to avoid indoor gatherings — and were surprised by the crowds.
“It was terrible,” Regina Helfer said. “The road by Sand Beach was bumper to bumper. It wasn’t like that before.”
There is no data that breaks down how many people who visit Acadia are from Maine versus other states. But there has been a clear trend of more overall visitors to the island during the last decade, which has brought more congestion of roads, parking and pedestrian areas, and changed how many Mainers feel about visiting the iconic tourist destination.
After 25 years in which annual visits hovered between 2 million and 2.8 million, the number of tourists who visit Acadia and Bar Harbor began to grow a few years before the pandemic. The expanding cruise ship industry brought more passengers in September and October, and the 100th anniversary in 2016 of both Acadia National Park and the National Park Service helped draw more tourist interest to MDI.
Then in 2021, the estimated visits to Acadia shot up above 4 million, and the decline since then has been minor, with each annual total easily outpacing pre-pandemic numbers. Last month, with the area’s fall foliage now a major draw for tourists, the park had both its busiest day ever — regardless of time of year — and its busiest October.
July and August have always been the park’s busiest months and, though they still are, much of the increase has been in spring and fall. Over the past 10 years, visits in October have grown 80 percent, driven in part by cruise ship traffic and by increasingly warm and dry fall weather.
May’s visit totals are higher than they were pre-COVID but still are less than half of the numbers for July or August. November’s numbers also have increased but are still dramatically lower than in October. The volume of tourists in Acadia typically falls more than 80 percent in the weeks after Halloween, according to National Park Service data.
That’s one reason why the Helfers now aim to come to MDI in May and November.
“The park is so busy from June to October,” Larry Helfer said.
Acadia in-state tourism
Bar Harbor stops charging for parking after Oct. 30, and downtown parking spaces also are much easier to find, he said. Same goes for popular spots in the park — including the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is by reservation only from late May through late October.
“There’s still enough shops open and places to eat,” Helfer said.
Despite the sudden lack of crowds in late fall, most local businesses aim to stay open through November. A few stay open through the end of the year or even all winter.
Jena Young, co-owner of Side Street Cafe, wrote on a Bar Harbor community page on Facebook that many spots are staying open into November despite the dropoff in tourism. One of her goals is to give local residents and other Mainers the chance to enjoy what Bar Harbor has to offer, she said.
“I can assure you there is little to no financial gain to being open now,” Young wrote. “We know that Side Street Cafe wouldn’t be a success without the history and people who supported us along the way.”
Two events after Halloween that the local Chamber of Commerce organizes — morning bed races on Cottage Street in November and an evening tree lighting in December — are meant to help offset the sudden dropoff in tourists.
But for Garett Nelson of Ellsworth, even during the off-season MDI is geared too much toward “uppity pompous folks and tourists.” Special events scheduled for when parking is free and trails and sidewalks aren’t crammed with people are still not enough to convince him to make the 20-mile trip from his home.
“I avoid that area altogether,” Nelson said. “I tend to go to places like Blue Hill or Schoodic or Baxter or up north in [Aroostook] County.”
For the Mainers who still come to the island during quieter times of year, though, it can still offer plenty of charm.
Donna Lang of Brunswick said she enjoys Bar Harbor after Halloween. She has visited every November for the past six years and, for the first time this year, made plans to see the annual bed races.
Lang grew up in New York state, but visited Maine as a child and later moved to Millinocket, where she raised her two children, who are now grown and live out of state.
She said Bar Harbor now gets “millions of more people” than it did a couple of decades ago, when she would bring her children to visit the area. She would bring them in the summer, but found it “a little crazy,” she said.
“We like it. We’ve already walked our trails,” Lang said, nodding toward her little dog that she held on a leash on a Main Street sidewalk. “It’s quiet and beautiful. I’m a cancer survivor, so I come here to celebrate. I like that you can walk the streets and there’s still some room. It’s my special trip every fall.”
