Regions in Brief

The Southern Maine Coast

York: 45 miles SW of Portland; 10 miles NE of Portsmouth; 65 miles NE of Boston

Maine's southern coast runs roughly from the state line at Kittery to Portland, and is the primary destination of most travelers to the state. (These statistics include many day-trippers from the Boston area). While it takes some doing to find privacy or remoteness here, there are at least two excellent reasons to come: the long, sandy beaches and a sense of history in the coastal villages (some of them, anyway).

Thanks to quirks of geography, nearly all of Maine's sandy shores are along this stretch of coastline. It's not hard to find a relaxing spot whether you prefer dunes, the lulling sound of breaking waves, or a carnival-like atmosphere in a beach town. Waves depend on the weather; during a good Northeast blow, they pound the shores, rise above the roads, and threaten beach houses built decades ago. During balmy midsummer days, though, the ocean can be as gentle as a farm pond, its barely audible waves lapping timidly at the shore as the tide creeps in, inch by inch, covering tidal pools full of crabs, snails, and starfish.

One thing all the beaches here share in common: They're washed by the chilled waters of the Gulf of Maine, which makes for invigorating swimming. Though the beach season is generally brief and intense, running only from July 4th to Labor Day, some towns are making an effort to stretch the tourist season out into fall. However, this idea hasn't really taken hold yet (the frigid water might have something to do with), and once Labor Day weekend is finished, oceanside communities reliably adopt a slower, almost somnolent pace.

Watching the Waves . . . of History -- On foggy or rainy days along the southern Maine coast, when it's just too mizzling out there to hit the beach, don't despair. Instead, go hunting for history; there's a lot of it here, and Maine is still relatively undeveloped compared to coastal Connecticut or Massachusetts, so the sense of history tends to remain stronger, and more of the buildings from an earlier era remain.

More than 3 centuries ago, European newcomers tried to settle here, only to be driven out by Native Americans (who had already been pushed to the brink by treaty-breaking British and fur-hungry French). By the early 19th century, though, this coastline had become thoroughly colonized, and had blossomed into one of the most prosperous regions in the nation. Shipbuilders constructed brigantines and sloops, using stout Maine pines and other trees floated downriver from the big North Woods; ship captains based up and down the coast in places like Searsport, Kittery, Bath, and Belfast plied the breadth of the Eastern seaboard, the Caribbean, and far beyond. Merchants and traders built vast warehouses to store the valuable results of those excursions. Many of these captains' and merchants' handsome, historic homes still stand, overlooking the coast (or hills or rivers just inland) and attesting to the Maine coast's former prosperity.

Things quieted down for a bit, until landscape artists "rediscovered" the big vistas of Maine. A second wave of settlers arrived on the southern coast in the mid-to-late 19th century: wealthy city dwellers from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia seeking relief from the summer heat and congestion of the big city. In quiet seaside towns like Kennebunkport, Ogunquit, Cape Elizabeth, and York Harbor, they built huge, shingled estates (which they called "cottages," in a classic example of understatement-by-the-super-rich) facing right out onto the Atlantic. At the beginning of the 20th century, the wealthy rusticators were then followed here by an emerging middle class (a third wave?), who built somewhat smaller bungalows close to the shore and congregated at oceanside boardinghouses to splash in the waves for healthful weekends. Their legacy is places like the Short Sands neighborhood of York, Kennebunk Beach, and Old Orchard Beach.