By Everett Potter

Every summer brings a parade of traffic along Route 1 in Maine as travelers press onwards to the goal of so many coastal vacations, Acadia National Park. The park is spectacular, but the Bar Harbor area can also become very crowded in the summer’s heat.

Few visitors turn off that busy road and drive down one of the narrow peninsulas between Brunswick and Camden, the area known as Midcoast Maine. The hallmarks of these less-discovered parts of the coast include saltwater farms, lobsterman’s cottages and the shingled summer residences of the well-to-do.

There is magic to be found driving these narrow, twisting byroads that offer glimpses of Maine’s famous rock-bound coast and rocky islets battered by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. They’re a world away from the traffic humming steadily along Route 1 … continue reading