16 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.

Along the shore path near downtown, spacious, gorgeously furnished rooms and suites are spread about the 1903 shingle-style main inn (originally a wealthy summer resident's "cottage"), a modern addition, and a pet-friendly carriage house. Rising from the oceanside path, the expansive lawn is topped with a heated pool, and beyond that, the Veranda, where a full breakfast is served as well as Nordic-inspired cuisine—about half the seating is outdoors—in the evening when it becomes an intimate fine dining restaurant. During the day, guests can enjoy the inn’s dark-walled parlor, which has a grand piano. In the evening it’s part of the dinner-only restaurant. Through the glass doors, you can watch breakfast or dinner being prepared in the adjoining kitchen. 

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).

Originally a men's social club, this elegant oceanfront hotel has rooms spread among three buildings on well-landscaped grounds: the historic 1887 main inn, which has a modern wing, and two buildings with exterior-entrance rooms. Oceanfront Lodge rooms have private decks overlooking the ocean, and many in the main building have gas fireplaces and harbor-view balconies. A luxury spa offers everything from massages and mud wraps to aromatherapy and facials. A terrific upscale restaurant, the Reading Room, is famed for its lobster bisque and features live piano music nightly. The outdoor Terrace Grill serves a lobster bake with all the fixings. Enjoy continental breakfast poolside or in the poolside building with windows on three sides.

Pretty period-style wallpaper and antiques add to the back-in-time, relaxed vibe at this lodging in an old home across from Prospect Harbor that offers six comfortable guest rooms, some with private entrances. All of the rooms have water views; modern baths are good-size for a bed-and-breakfast. A scrumptious full breakfast is served in the dining room adjoining the cozy parlor, which looks out on the harbor. 

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.

Built in 1870 as part of Mount Desert Island's first summer hotel, the elegant main inn has tastefully decorated rooms named after different kinds of boats and a two-bedroom suite; there’s also a wing with two modern accommodations and a "carriage house" cottage. Serving guests and the public, the Bowspirt Bar is a cozy spot that also makes use of the large porch and deck overlooking the sweeping front lawn. All lodging quarters have robes, and some have jetted tubs. A three-bedroom suite in the wing, with a full kitchen and private entrance, is perfect for families. 

Built in 1888 and once part of a summer colony, this hillside inn—run by the same family since 1977—is an easy base for exploring Acadia National Park, as you can connect from local trails here to get there. A unique collection of maps hangs in the public rooms, many of Acadia National Park. Rooms have hardwood floors, and oriental rugs, and some of the bathrooms have marble sinks and wonderful tubs for soaking. If you're lucky, you'll get a room with wood-burning fireplaces or a kitchenette.

Run by the third generation of the family that’s owned it since 1978, original mid-century features like porcelain tile and tubs and wood-framed screen doors to usher ocean breezes into guestrooms, don't show their age; the 24-hour access lobby shows the same meticulous attention to maintenance and cleanliness—even with free microwave popcorn available (and movie-style containers to put it in). Painted light blue, with one king bed, rooms are in two one-story buildings and have at-door parking; most furnishings are newer, but some rooms have original bureaus and headboards that add to the relaxing yesteryear vibe. The multiuse path across the street leads to Bar Harbor's waterfront.

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. 

With clean rooms and a well-kept prime downtown location, this motel is affordable done right and a convenient base for exploring the Acadia area. Each room has outdoor and indoor sitting areas and one free parking space. Complimentary coffee, a water bottle filling station, and a microwave are in the lobby.

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.

A Bar Harbor hotelier gave this large, yellow shingle-style "cottage"—listed on the National Register of Historic Places—a stylish overhaul in 2021, so rooms and common spaces are fresh and updated yet blend perfectly with architectural features like moldings and fireplaces; guests staying in the property's three cottages and modern building out back also enjoy common spaces in the main inn and are served a full breakfast there. The original chauffeur's cottage is now three guestrooms, each with a porch, fireplace, and private entrance. 

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.

Though it was fully renovated in 2021, this 6-acre property still boasts a clapboard three-story 1884 inn with a wide porch that provides wondrous views of Somes Sound. Resort amenities include a croquet court, a heated pool, morning yoga, restaurants, a spa, a dock, and a swank game room. There are also guest rooms and suites in two summer “cottages'' beside the inn, built during its earlier heyday, and a dozen or so cabins with living rooms and full kitchens, plus two rental homes. In the inn’s common areas and guest rooms, classic decor features patterned wallpaper and soft pink and peach floral fabrics, while the cottages and cabins have an L.L. Bean vibe.

Set amid towering fir trees on Hancock Point, this shingled lodging was built in 1884; the main inn holds comfortable rooms decorated with authentic antiques and country-style furnishings, while two modern accommodations in the carriage house are perfect for families, and the den there is for all inn guests to enjoy. Diners from well beyond Hancock come to the inn's fine dining restaurant for dressed-up versions of traditional New England fare, like scallops sautéed in white wine with garlic, lemon, mushrooms, scallions, and tomatoes, or rack-of-lamb topped with herbed breading. A second floor "guest favorite" king room has a pair of armchairs in an alcove with three windows.