Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park
A working lighthouse rises above some of Maine’s most dramatic bedrock, grounded in 1835 lighthouse and keeper’s house
United States: places and wildlife — page 16
Browse the published Explore collection for United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Saint Croix Island International Historic Site
Bronze figures, shoreline views, and exhibits recount colonization, winter catastrophe, French-Wabanaki encounters, and the beginning of Acadia.
Fort Kent State Historic Site
The 1839 cedar-log structure overlooks the Fish and Saint John rivers, where competing timber claims nearly brought the United States and Britain to war.
Whaleback Shell Midden State Historic Site
Layers of oyster shell and associated archaeological evidence reveal long relationships among people, river, climate, and abundant estuarine resources.
Acadia National Park
Mount Desert Island, Schoodic Peninsula, Isle au Haut, and smaller islands create distinct experiences rather than one continuous attraction.
Baxter State Park
More than 200,000 acres of mountains, ponds, forest, trails, and backcountry camps are managed to remain forever wild.
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument
The monument protects a large working-to-wild landscape of the East Branch Penobscot, forests, mountains, logging history, and cultural relationships reaching far beyond its 2016 designation.
Allagash Wilderness Waterway
Lakes, river, rapids, portages, campsites, historic remnants, and deep North Woods isolation create a multi-day paddling landscape rather than a roadside park.
Camden Hills State Park
Auto-road views, forest trails, ocean panoramas, camping, and the Mount Battie tower make the park unusually accessible without erasing its steep terrain.
Grafton Notch State Park
Roadside natural features coexist with demanding Appalachian Trail terrain, creating very different levels of commitment inside one park.
Reid State Park
Mile and Half Mile beaches are rare expanses on Maine’s rockbound shore, while tidal lagoon, dunes, and ledges create several distinct habitats.
Popham Beach State Park
Tidal rivers, offshore islands, dunes, and broad flats produce one of Maine’s most dramatic but least static beaches.
Quoddy Head State Park
West Quoddy Head Light, coastal forest, bog, cliffs, and immense tides create a layered edge landscape at the easternmost point of the contiguous United States.
Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park
Short paths cross white pine and hemlock woods to salt marsh, rocky shore, and Googins Island, where nesting osprey make seasonal ecology visible from a respectful distance.
Mount Blue State Park
Webb Lake beach and campground sit across the valley from Mount Blue’s hiking trails and summit tower.
Sebago Lake State Park
Beaches, woodland camping, paddling, fishing, and river access introduce Maine’s second-largest lake in a developed park setting.
Cobscook Bay State Park
Coves, mudflats, spruce forest, birdlife, and campsites experience some of the East Coast’s greatest tidal ranges.
Bradbury Mountain State Park
Short forest trails, ledges, mountain-bike routes, and broad southern Maine views culminate in exceptional spring hawk watching.
Moosehead Lake
Long arms, islands, coves, working towns, and the bulk of Mount Kineo make Moosehead feel more like a region than a single attraction.
Gulf Hagas
The West Branch Pleasant River cuts a three-mile gorge lined with falls, pools, cliffs, and old-growth pockets.
Moxie Falls
An approachable forest trail reaches overlooks above a narrow series of cascades and the nearly 90-foot main drop.
Schoodic Point
Open rock, volcanic dikes, spruce forest, islands, and distant Mount Desert peaks create a quieter but equally forceful side of Acadia.
Thunder Hole
Wave timing, rock shape, tide, and air compression produce the famous boom, but many visits reveal only quieter water.
Cadillac Mountain
Bare rock, subalpine plants, glacial forms, and views across Frenchman Bay create a summit experience shaped by both geology and intense visitation.
Desert of Maine
Exposed dunes developed from a deep sand deposit after agricultural disturbance, not from desert climate.
Debsconeag Ice Caves
Glacially jumbled rock creates cold voids where snow and ice persist long after surrounding forest warms.
Katahdin via Hunt Trail
Forest, boulder fields, iron rungs, exposed tableland, and the final approach to Baxter Peak compress an expedition into a long day.
Knife Edge Trail
Sustained exposure, scrambling, abrupt wind, and fragile alpine habitat make the route qualitatively different from an ordinary summit trail.
Precipice Trail
Ladders, ledges, narrow traverses, and steep granite make this a nontechnical climbing route rather than a typical footpath.
Beehive Trail
Steep granite steps, ladders, cliff edges, and quick ocean views deliver serious exposure in short mileage.
Ocean Path
Forest edge, granite shore, pocket coves, and famous roadside landmarks unfold continuously enough to reveal the coast between stops.
Jordan Pond Path
Gravel carriage surface gives way to plank boardwalk and a rough boulder section, making a flat-looking shoreline loop surprisingly diverse.
Tumbledown Mountain Loop
The Loop Trail’s chimney-like Fat Man’s Misery, open ledges, and Tumbledown Pond create a compact route with mountaineering character.
Bold Coast Trail
Spruce forest, peatland, cobble coves, cliffs, campsites, and huge tidal views create one of Maine’s wildest coastal walks.
Gulf Hagas Rim Trail
The rim route links Screw Auger, Buttermilk, Billings, and Stair falls above the West Branch Pleasant River.
Bigelow Range via Fire Warden’s Trail
The route climbs from hardwood forest to Avery Peak, where a fire-tower foundation and long lake views reveal both conservation history and glacial scale.
Pleasant Mountain via Ledges Trail
A direct forest route reaches granite viewpoints and the former Shawnee Peak summit area, opening across the Lakes Region toward the White Mountains.
Camden Hills Maiden Cliff Trail
Stone steps and ledges rise to a white cross and broad lake view, pairing recreational beauty with the memory of a fatal nineteenth-century accident.
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Formal beds, woodland paths, children’s spaces, ecological plantings, sculpture, and seasonal installations make the garden far larger than one flower display.
Asticou Azalea Garden
Azaleas, a sand garden, stone, water, clipped evergreen forms, and borrowed views create concentrated seasonal change.
Thuya Garden
The Asticou Terraces, Thuya Lodge, cedar woods, and an English-style garden turn the approach into a sequence from harbor view to intimate planting.
McLaughlin Garden & Homestead
Lilacs, woodland flowers, mature trees, a barn, and the historic house preserve Bernard McLaughlin’s patient, informal plant collecting.
Maine Wildlife Park
Moose, black bear, lynx, raptors, reptiles, and other native species live here because injury, habituation, or orphaning prevents release.
Maine State Aquarium
Touch tanks, local fishes, invertebrates, lobster biology, and fisheries science connect close observation with working coastal management.
Anchorage Museum
Art, science, history, Indigenous knowledge, and the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center meet without reducing Alaska to wilderness scenery.
University of Alaska Museum of the North
The Gallery of Alaska joins archaeology, wildlife, art, paleontology, and cultural belongings collected across an enormous state.
Alaska State Museum
The museum connects Alaska Native cultures, Russian America, territorial government, industry, migration, and contemporary art.
Alaska Native Heritage Center
The Gathering Place and wooded lake trail introduce the distinct peoples and regions of Alaska through community-led programs rather than static cultural types.