What constitutes the Southern Maine Coast? Stretching from Kittery to Ogunquit, this dazzling coastal area encompassing Kittery, York (itself comprised of York Harbor, York Village, York Beach, and Cape Neddick), and Ogunquit (4 hours from Bar Harbor) teems with tourists searching for their fix of historic lighthouses, sandy shores, fresh lobster, and an array of other, lesser known delights.
Here, we unveil the wonders, some very unassuming, that make this region so popular along the picturesque New England coastline.
As you drive from the NH/ME border town of Kittery (outlets) to York Beach, to the popular Ogunquit on US Route 1, you’ll experience traffic jams and standstills as you crawl past questionable clam and lobster shacks and tacky tourist shops.
(Looking for more Maine? We’ve got 25+ Romantic Getaways in ME here).
But some of these “touristy” spots are well worth a stop. And there are other fantastic but lesser-known attractions you may miss unless you know where to look. One, that I just discovered myself by accident – an oceanside hotel with a front-row seat to an extraordinary sunrise over water-rippling sand.
Here, the Getaway Mavens reveal the many splendored aspects of this well-trod section of Maine.
Things to Do on the Southern Maine Coast
STOP: Kittery Trading Post – Kittery
Cross into Maine on I-95, get off Exit 3, head North on Route 1, and you’re faced with one Outlet Store after another. This bunching up of off-price establishments was (and still is) Kittery’s claim to fame. It’s the reason travelers crossed from New Hampshire to this most Southern of the Southern Maine Coast towns. Not for the beach. Not for the lobster. For the outlets.
Save for one mega family-owned (since 1938) sporting goods store: Kittery Trading Post. A complete mall located inside one store, KTP sells everything related to hunting, fishing, biking, camping, water sports, skiing, and more. Even if your idea of outdoor recreation is reading a trashy book on a beach, you’ll want to pop in just to see this place.
EAT: Bob’s Clam Hut – Kittery
I’m sticking this seafood shack – Bob’s Clam Hut – here because it’s right next door to the Kittery Trading Post and a fantastic first or last stop for fresh lobster, fried clams or seafood in Maine. There’s always a line, so just be patient. Cooks happily hustle to get your food to you quickly.
SHOP: Stonewall Kitchen Company Store – York
Millions of jars of homemade jams, mustards, and other Stonewall Kitchen condiments fly off the shelves of gift and specialty stores around the world each year. See what the hoopla is about at the Stonewall Kitchen Company Store. There are a dizzying number of samples to try, an in-house café, and ancillary cooking tools to purchase as well.
TOUR: Museums of Old York – York Village
Old York Village is that dyed-in-the-wool, quiet, and staid New England town. These preserved homes, schools, jails, wharf, art galleries, and burial grounds are collectively under the auspices of the Museums of Old York.
Far from stodgy, they provide an invigorating look at the origins of this south Maine coast region. Though most components of the compound are self-guided, some guided tours are offered through the summer. (Plan on at least 2-3 hours here).
Visitors Center
Start at the Visitor’s Center. It’s got a bite-sized climate-controlled museum gallery upstairs that probes “The Best of York” in terms of art, furniture and the source of wealth for those who first settled the southern Maine coast: shipping and trade.
Access Jefferds’ Tavern through the glass doors in the Visitor’s Center. This 1754 tavern is now used for programming.
Behind the Tavern sits a little brown schoolhouse, that served as the York Corner School from 1755-1850. Children ages five to 21 studied the 3-R’s here – primarily so they could read scripture and understand the law of the land.
Burial Ground: Witch Legend Debunked
Cross through the Burial Grounds, and look for the earliest headstone – dated 1648. Though oldest is important, perhaps the most famous gravesite here is the one belonging to Mary Nasson, who died in 1774.
Somehow, a legend arose around the slab of stone covering the grave; that it was purposely put there to prevent Mary, believed to be a witch, from rising from her burial place.
York Museum docents and historians stress that these rumors were false in all respects. First of all, the Witch Trials took place a century before Nasson’s time.
Secondly, these horizontal “Wolf Stones,” were often employed in Puritan cemeteries to keep wild animals, pigs, and cows from digging up dead bodies.
Finally, Mary was a well-loved figure in 18th-century York. The only rare thing about the grave is her lovely visage carved into the headstone – unusual for the time.
Emerson-Wilcox House
Next, take a 45-minute guided tour of the Emerson-Wilcox House. From the time it was built in 1740, the home served as a tavern, East India Dry Good Store, Post Office, and residence for prominent York families, including a 19th Century China Trade sea captain and his wife.
Most unusual is the curved tunnel-like hallway on the main floor, designed like an archaic wine catacomb. That’s not so surprising, considering the homeowner was exposed to a variety of world cultures and architecture.
Old Gaol (Jail)
Next door the Old Gaol (pronounced “jail” in Old English) is the most popular of the Museum’s buildings. Though the tour is self-guided, docents are on hand to answer questions. (Take the After Dark at the Old Gaol Guided Tour, if offered).
The original two cells, with walls three feet thick, were built to restrain those accused of crimes until traveling judges came to town to adjudicate each case – an average of 30 days. People were thrown in the slammer for swearing, taking God’s name in vain, disrespecting parents, gossiping, and other behaviors that are now commonplace.
Eventually, more cells, a courtroom (with an ingenious dividing wall that could be pulled down from the ceiling), and the jailer’s quarters were added on. Viscerally experience all of these while contemplating punishment for things we do every day in our modern world.
An actual 17th-century English “Ducking Stool” – the precursor of “waterboarding” – is most compelling. In this case, however, it was meant to embarrass rather than harm. For the most part women, accused of being gossips or scolds, were strapped in and completely submerged in water repeatedly until promising never to offend again.
John Hancock Wharf
Finally, walk or drive about a mile down Lindsay Road, once the main street in Old York, as it links York Village to the busy-then-bucolic-now York River.
The Museums of York also include two properties on this waterway: the John Hancock Wharf building (partially owned by, but never visited by our Declaration of Independence’s first signer), and the G.A. Marshall’s Old Line Store – now a well-regarded art gallery. It behooves visitors
PHOTO OP: Cape Neddick, aka Nubble Light – York
Follow signs to Nubble Light at the end of this Southern Maine Coast residential neighborhood. Then, get ready to jockey among the hundreds of other tourists for a coveted parking spot. You can’t get to the 1879 lighthouse itself, which sits on Nubble Island across from a rocky, fast-flowing channel. But it is certainly a splendid sight.
SWIM: Two York Beach Beaches
Short Sands Beach
If bustling beaches, framed by bowling alleys and pinball arcades are your thing, then get thee to Short Sands Beach. With Bowl-A-Rama, arcades, and lots of bodies sunning on a strip of sand, this is the honky-tonky-er of the York beaches.
Long Sands Beach
Long Sands Beach is the counterpoint to Short Sands bustling vibe. Expanding 1 1/2 miles, there’s plenty of room for many a beachgoer. In the morning, the rising sun reflects off of rippled wet sand, looking like the setting for an expensive car commercial. The neighborhood is quiet, especially compared to Short Sands Beach, with one popular ice-cream stand, and a terrific little restaurant (lots of vegan options), Stones Throw, right across the street.
VISIT: Ogunquit Museum of American Art – Ogunquit
A 15-minute drive from York Village, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, is the coolest art museum between Boston and Portland – a mid-century modern gem overlooking the sea and filled with important work fashioned during the genre’s heyday between WWI and WWII.
From the late 1800s into the mid-1900s, city dwellers longed to be close to nature, if only via landscape paintings they’d hang in their parlors. Manhattan socialite, Edith Halpert, maintained close ties to the Ogunquit Art Colony.
She opened her New York City gallery in 1926 to display the work of these artists. Catering to wealthy New Yorkers eager for a taste of the “newly discovered” Southern Maine Coast, Halpert inadvertently drove a fledgling tourism industry.
Henry Strater, son of a wealthy Kentucky snuff-maker, was one of the wannabe artists enticed to Ogunquit as a young man. In 1919, he arrived in this little fishing village to learn to paint.
By then, Ogunquit was already an established Art Colony, thanks to Charles Woodbury (1898), the muted-color master who coached his students to “paint in verbs rather than nouns,” and Hamilton Easter Field (1902), who endeared himself to the local fisherman, drank with them, and forged a symbiotic relationship with the working community.
Cubist Controversy
The first NYC Armory Show in 1913 had also already debuted the works of Matisse, Cézanne, Duchamp, and other Cubists to much controversy. Most reviews mocked Europe’s new Modern Art Movement.
That didn’t stop Strater, who spent time in Europe to pursue his art instruction. While there he drove a WWI ambulance, met Ernest Hemingway, and hung out in Paris with him and other members of the “Lost Generation” (T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Co.).
In 1925, Strater returned to settle in Ogunquit – a full-fledged artist. He founded this 5-gallery museum in 1953 to house the Modernist art created here.
The OMAA embodies the best of work from both the Woodbury and Easter Field Schools of Art. Many modernist pieces, including two that Strater painted of Hemingway, hang in the bright red Strater Gallery.
STROLL: Marginal Way – Ogunquit
The 1.3-mile paved oceanfront path of Marginal Way is Newport’s Cliff Walk without the mansions – and a bit curvier than its Rhode Island counterpart. Beautifully landscaped, with private homes on one side and waves of the frothy Atlantic smashing onto deep rust-red boulders on the other, it’s a popular leg-stretcher. And an Instagram favorite on the Southern Maine Coast.
SHOP: Perkins Cove, Ogunquit
There are plenty of shops in Perkins Cove – a pretty waterside collection of weather-beaten structures. Wander at will.
TOUR: Ogunquit Playhouse
Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, and Douglas Fairbanks all performed at the still-operating Ogunquit Playhouse. Take a 90-minute Behind the Scenes Tour to learn about the Playhouse’s history.
Southern Maine Coast Restaurants
EAT: Locals Love
It’s impossible to pick the best ’cause it seems every local and visitor has his or her favorite. Based on my own experience and local recommendations, I can heartily recommend Stones Throw off of Long Sands Beach in York Beach for seafood and great vegan dishes, Compass Rose Coffee and Creamery near Perkins Cove in Ogunquit for great java, Footbridge Lobster in Perkins Cove for excellent breakfast sandwiches served through a counter window, and of course the aforementioned Bob’s Clam Hut for its signature dish.
Southern Maine Coast Hotels
STAY/SURPRISE: Cutty Sark Motel, York Beach
The Cutty Sark Motel is a throwback to the days when a Maine beach vacation meant ocean breezes, salt-stiffened hair, and not a luxurious room designed to death. This family-run inn has been welcoming guests since 1961, with every single clean, bright and comfy room overlooking the water and a location that puts Long Sands Beach practically at your doorstep. It’s the kind of place where the views do the heavy lifting—and nobody’s complaining.
STAY: Cliff House Maine – Cape Neddick ME
InStyle Magazine called the re-imagined Cliff House on the Southern Maine Coast in Cape Neddick ME one of the best spots in the world to get engaged. And when you drive past lovely shore homes, pull into the long drive, and at last enter this Oceanside resort that conjures up images of Jane Eyre on the moors, you’ll understand why.
You have to make a concerted effort to reach the new and vastly improved hotel, just a 10-minute drive from York Beach or Ogunquit. Once you get here, however, you may not want to venture out to those crowded locales.Walk through the blue front door into a sunny lobby. Although the dark reclaimed wood floor is as old as the hills, the whole blasted place feels as fresh as the breezes that blow over the moody Atlantic Ocean– right outside a soaring wall of windows.
The Cliff House has been in existence since Captain Theodore and Elsie Weare built a lodge atop these rocks in 1866. Back then, you could stay a whole week for a mere $6.
The hotel remained in the Weare family until 2015, when it was purchased by Rockbridge as a Destination Hotel. It was then basically gutted and rebuilt for today’s luxury traveler.
First Impressions of Cliff House
There are few resorts on earth with the kind of unspoiled beauty you’ll find at the Cliff House. Generally, a wild location like this with unparalleled views would be crammed with commercial development. But that’s not the case on Cape Neddick, a few miles and worlds away from Maine’s most populated tourist towns.
Yes, there are several private homes wedged into neighboring cliffs. But other than that, it’s pretty remote.
The Cliff House is luxurious, but not flamboyantly so. TrueXCullins designed the interior in modern Scandinavian style, with a nod to the property’s nautical lineage. Boat-deck wood floors hark back to the days of sailing ships. Ships knots are arrayed behind the reception desk. And, of course, a bank of two-story windows overlooks the endless Atlantic and those bald cliffs that give this hotel its name.
Rooms at Cliff House
Guest rooms are ship shape in nautical navy, ecru, and white. The bedding is so incredibly soft, voluminous, and snuggly, this place could be a waterside shack and the sheets/duvet/mattress combo would render it a 5-star hotel.
The King Deluxe room features a linen-clad couch, round ottoman, large flat-screen TV, and plenty of storage space. Two khaki-colored canvas captain’s chairs and a yachting cocktail table sit beneath an enlarged nautical chart. The lines are simple and clean – as opposed to the temperamental Atlantic a swan’s-dive from the balcony.
Designers have updated the room for modern travelers. There are several outlets within reach of each bedside, and lights in the room are easy to turn off right before snoozing.
A blue and white plaid plushy micro-fiber robe hangs in the small, but pretty bathroom, with flattering and ample light for makeup application. (Just sayin’ – it’s the small things that excite this traveler). Linen repeats in the textural tile glass rain shower, large enough for two.
Dining at Cliff House
Tiller: If available, ask for a window seat facing a rectangular cove where the Atlantic runs up against the rocks. It’s a show better than anything on TV or your electronic device, so please leave those in your room. From here, you can enjoy excellent food, a glass of wine, and, if lucky, leaping whales or gallivanting seals right outside.
Yes, these creatures have been known to show up. Keep a watchful eye while dining on the likes of Cider-Glazed Brussels Sprouts, Peppers and Potatoes, and larger plates like Day Boat Scallops with Pork Belly.
Breakfast, often with fogged-in view of the jagged, angular rocks outside, is a la cart. Offerings include Zucchini Bread French Toast, Cracked Oats with Maine Maple Syrup and Continental Breakfast breads.
Nubb’s Lobster Shack: Near the indoor pool, this very casual eatery, highlighting Maine’s most notable dish, includes an arcade space with foosball, darts and shuffleboard.
The Spa at Cliff House
This is a full-service spa with 9 treatment rooms, a “movement room” offering yoga classes, and other “Holistic Wellness Experiences” that focus on mind, body, and soul rather than exterior beauty.
During high season, you must book a treatment to use the dry and wet saunas. But all guests are invited to use both the indoor and outdoor pools and fitness center.
Amenities at Cliff House
Gallery at Bald Head Cliff – in the underground connector between the main building and the indoor pool building, showcasing some of the best local artwork, for sale.
Fitness Center with machines overlooking the Ocean.
Indoor and Outdoor pools
