6 Best Hotels in Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island, Maine

A must for nature lovers, this lodging sits on a 200-acre preserve dotted with woods, streams, salt marshes, and ponds, with spacious guest rooms in two historic buildings overlooking a private white sand beach (rare for these parts); it's also home to Oceanside Meadows Innstitute for the Arts and Sciences, which holds lectures, musical performances, art exhibits, and other events in the restored barn. Furnished with antiques, country pieces, and family treasures, breakfast is served in the sea captain’s home. Common spaces include the large, sunny living room there and a guest kitchen in the 1820s home, where a first floor room has a king bed and private deck. Both buildings face the beach, which is flanked by granite ledges. A library, stocked with the classics and nature books, is in a small 1700s structure.

Taking one of the well-appointed, modern rooms in this 2011 replica of Bar Harbor's famed Rodick House hotel puts you a stone's throw from the town’s lively restaurants, cafés, and gift shops, and though it’s a short walk to the waterfront, you can relax here with a dip in the hotel's heated pool or Jacuzzi. Elegant simplicity underpins the spacious guest rooms, including two-bedroom, three-queen units that are great for families. The courtesy hot breakfast buffet is enough to tide you over until an early dinner. Harkening to the Rodick House, which was torn down in 1906, the long covered front porch has a row of rocking chairs for relaxing with a pick-me-up drink (hot or cold).

At this large waterfront hotel downtown, building facades, the large lobby, and granite walls, stairs, and benches imbue the Harborside with the aesthetic of Bar Harbor's Gilded Age mansions; also designed in the Tudor style, the 1929 Bar Harbor Club, originally private, anchors resort amenities including a fitness center, full-service spa, clay tennis courts, and one of the two heated pools. Lodging choices include rooms with a king or two queens and suites, many with kitchenettes—a few swank ones sit atop an old coal pier. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the hotel's Italian restaurant has a pizza oven and outdoor seating, including picnic tables; inside the vibe is garden room grand.

This midsize, year-round hotel on Mount Desert Street—with touches like rocking chairs on the front porch and a tranquil hillside garden with surprises like bocce and a tree swing—is reminiscent of Bar Harbor's Gilded Age mansions, but make no mistake, this is a thoroughly modern hotel with good-size rooms, and it's family-friendly, too. There's a game room, laundry, indoor and outdoor patio seating to enjoy the full buffet breakfast, and a few small seating areas about the hotel. 

Renovated into a chic family-friendly resort in 2022, these 1940s-era roadside cottages surround a green that sweeps uphill across Route 3 from Hulls Cove beach just 3 miles from Bar Harbor—Acadia is even closer. Touches like vintage lamps and art add cottage-y authenticity to the upscale nautical decor, and all cabins have large baths, flat-screen TVs, sitting and dining areas, and a/c—often not needed, as the screen door and windows stir cross-breezes. White inside and out, all 30 cabins (17 studios plus one- and two bedrooms) have a large wet bar with a microwave and refrigerator, pull-out couch, and king bed; two-bedroom cottages also have twin beds. Red doors pop next to the front patios—from most you can gaze down at the sea. Red-and-white umbrellas are around the pool and above it on the lodge patio.

Luckily for visitors to Acadia National Park, Kampgrounds of America transformed one of its traditional campgrounds into its first glampground in 2020; anchoring 64 tents (all with floors, beds, private fire rings, and hotel-like amenities) on well-shaded, well-spaced sites is an impressive lodge with a high sloped wood ceiling and restaurant (eat in or get items to go), bar, fireplaces, chic chairs and couches, and decks. Made of canvas and wood with screening in front, tents sleep two or up to five and some have bunk beds; almost all have inside baths and premium ones have outdoor showers, too. Loaded with hardwoods, the property is a sea of color come fall.