We enter Maine's famous Acadia National Park at the Hull's Cove Visitor Center. As we begin to explore this beautiful natural preserve, we'll learn about the rich forests and why the foliage here is so vibrant in the fall. Note: The tour is over 20+ miles long per tour, with more than 30+ audio stories per tour, and takes about 2-3 hours per tour to complete. New, Lifetime access, no expiry. Use it anytime, on any trip, as many times as you want.
Our self-guided driving tour enters the famous Park Loop Road of Acadia. We'll follow this loop all around the park, ending at the summit of Cadillac mountain.
We'll then pass the beautiful Beaver Pond, where we'll catch a glimpse of some beavers and their dams if we're lucky. We'll also see Jackson Labs on the other side, and we'll learn about its impact on Bar Harbor.
As our tour continues, we'll pass the Precipice Trail. This is a great hike for those in the mood for a little physical detour. It's also home to the endangered peregrine falcon! These birds tend to build their nests on high rocky ledges, where non-flying animals can’t reach the eggs. The steep face of this mountain is perfect for that!
This spot looks out over Bar Harbor’s Frenchman Bay. You might be able to spot a little island in the bay. This is the home of Egg Rock Lighthouse.
Here we've got a second option for a detour: Ocean Path Trail. If the steep inclines of Pecipice Trail weren't your style, the gentle, winding path here is a great alternative.
Next up: Sandy Beach! At just 290 yards long, the beach is small, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in fascinating natural history. You might notice a slight greenish tint to the sand. That’s because of the sea urchins!
As we continue driving through Acadia, we'll pass Old Soaker. The waves crash against the vertical face of the rock, shooting water up into the air.
We'll also see Thunder Hole, a natural rock inlet where waves crash with a thunderous boom.
Monument Cove is another example of the seemingly miraculous force of nature. Water and time have worn away at the granite over the centuries, leaving behind a twenty-foot tall pillar of rock that looks like a man-made sculpture.
As our tour continues through Acadia's Park Loop Road, Gorham Mountain rises to the right. The steep trail up this mountain features a false summit, where it appears to plateau before continuing up further. But both the false and real summit offers a wonderful view of the surrounding landscape!
Next up as we drive as the stunning Otter Cliff and Otter Cove. At the top of Otter Cliff, it’s a steep 110-foot drop down to the chilly Atlantic.
If this rock seems like it doesn’t belong here, that’s because it doesn’t. The same glacier that coasted over Jordan Pond also dragged this massive rock across the land and deposited it here.
Our self-guided tour brings us to Jordan Pond next. We'd highly recommend pausing here to appreciate the views and the restaurant. Jordan Pond was carved out of the earth twenty thousand years ago by a massive glacier.
Bubble Pond is another glacial remnant, hollowed out of the ground tens of thousands of years ago by a massive ice sheet descending on the island from the Arctic.
Our drive brings us past Eagle Lake, which serves as the water source for Bar Harbor. It’s also a food source for local birds.
Finally, we begin the drive up to the summit of Acadia's crown jewel: Cadillac Mountain. The views from the top are unmatched!
Next up are two churches. They’ll both leave an impression — but in totally different ways!
You can’t miss the church because the most unique thing about it is its design. Or rather… lack of design! In fact, the building looks like it's made of several mismatched parts. Each one represents a different historical era.
This little library's history goes all the way back to 1875. It all began with a casual conversation among some of Bar Harbor's wealthy summer residents. A public library would establish Bar Harbor as a REAL town. They pitched the idea to the town.
Pause here again, just past the School Street intersection. Look at the Abbe Museum on your right.
Bar Harbor's Village Green has some star power behind it… the layout and landscaping were done by Beatrix Farrand, the woman who designed the White House's Rose Garden. Her design still remains intact to this day. You can't mess with perfection!
You're walking along the coast of Frenchman Bay. Wait — why is it named for the French? Simple! It's because of all the French expeditions that took place here in the 1500s. Long before the land could be settled by European colonists, it had to be charted, mapped and evaluated. France’s Samuel de Champlain did just that. While Spain’s conquistadors looked for gold in South America, the French focused on the fur trade in the North.
If this rock looks out of place here… that's because it is! Balance Rock is a glacial erratic. That means that a glacier pulled this boulder from a granite deposit up north and deposited it here.
Grant Park marks the site of a building that no longer stands. See the grassy area you're looking at right now? This was once a personal tennis court!
Right next to Grant Park, on your left, you can't miss the sprawling seaside resort, Bar Harbor Inn. In 1887, this building started out as the Mount Desert Reading Room: a place for the well-educated wealthy summer residents of Bar Harbor to meet and discuss literature. Back in the days before movie theaters and malls, this was one of the biggest social hubs in town!
Very good tour with just one little hiccup. There was a closed road on our Mount Desert tour which was not recognized. Might have been a new closure that gps unaware of. Tour was excellent value for the money and can explore at your own pace. We did the Arcadia National Park tour during our 3 day visit. It is as an excellent tour as well
It was fantastic, couldn’t have learned all we did without the app.
Doing the Viator drive through the park and Bar Harbor walking tour was worth it. Very informative!!
Perfect for touring at our own pace. Interesting information as we drove through the park.
Make sure you have good internet. We showed up at the park and we hadn't downloaded the app so we could not acess the tour. Very dissappointing.
Small park. Nice scenery but not any wow moments.
The PERFECT way to see the sights in Acadia. We are older -- so our ability to do trails and a lot of hiking are limited. This guide was so good at describing the scenery and suggesting places to stop for vistas. We loved al the history and educational highlights -- really enriched the experience with all the beautiful scenery. We loved that it was so simple to use and keyed off our GPS -- so the tour always knew where we were and could tell us what to look for. Highly recommend !!!!
Beautiful drive thru a masterpiece of nature; definitely an item off of my bucket list. Gorgeous scenery
The tour was basically okay. On several occasions, the dialogue did not coordinate with the location. This, I can tell there was nothing about bar harbor in this, even though it says there was.
Works very well and love that it is on your own timeline! The download went well. Also love that it works when you are not in the best mobile service. We did both Acadia and Bar Harbor.
We loved the audio guide and the app was easy to use. We loved it that the tour would pick up at any point where there were any points of interest around. Stories were engaging and educational, and we enjoyed the overall experience. Thank you!
This purchase was a great value because you get the driving tour for the Acadia Park Loop, ocean path walking tour in the park, walking tour of Bar Harbor, and the driving tour of Mt. Desert island. We did all but the ocean path walk. All tours were easy to use and the technology worked well whether we were driving or walking. All were very informative and added to our first visit to Bar Harbor and Acadia by helping us understand the history, geology, and high points of this beautiful part of the US.
The audio tour of Acadia NP is a great way to see and learn about the park at your own pace in your own car. We would use it again on other trips.
It did not know if we were "coming or going" and repeated going to and from. Also information or our location was wrong
It was a very nice tour. Gave lots of good info and worked perfectly. We recommend this self-tour very much.
We loved being able to go at our own pace and it was very informative and convenient. You can break up the areas however it works best for you.
We downloaded the app and trips as instructed. All worked well and very helpful. The tour progressed automatically as you reached the next point of interest on the map. You could pause as needed as well. Easy to use.
excellent way to experience Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor Maine. Loved how easy app was to use and the info given. You can pause app at any point if you want to stop at the sights, continues where you left off. Had one slight hiccup, each time we restarted, my pandora came on, just had to close it out and tour started again. Highly recommend if you don't want to miss anything
The narrator told some cool stories about the park....biggest problem was that he wanted you to shut down every other app and only keep his up. Every time I minimized the app to take a picture, I had to listen to the whole introduction speech when I brought the app back up. Acadia is an amazing place -- taking pictures is a must. Didn't care for having to wait through 2 minutes of how to work the app every time I stopped to photograph something. If I had paid more than $25, I might have been more annoyed.
Too crowded. Too many foreigners, too many people in general. I want to see it, but not like that. We skipped it when we saw what a zoo it was. I can’t imagine what all those people are doing to the environment of the park!
Glad we downloaded the trip beforehand. No service for most of the trip so that was helpful advice. Info was good and helpful while driving to listen instead of reading the info. Worth it!!!
Overall we liked the self guided tour. It gave us facts about Acadia that wouldn’t have known otherwise. It also was good a notifying us on when certain parts of the park were coming up and told us where to park. I wouldn’t say the self guided tour was 100% needed but it was helpful. I will say however the set up was somewhat annoying. I was unaware that I needed to download a second app for the audio. Once that was set up it worked great.
Used this as we drove around loop road. Provided helpful information to understand what we were seeing and to provide historical context. Also helped us determine where we wanted to stop for the experience or to drive on.
Well, what was the most outstanding thing about the experience was it had a lot of self directions to get it set up which I was a bit apprehensive about but let me tell you once I got set up with the tour. It was absolutely awesome. It really gave me some excellent information about Acadian national Park.
Driving through park & hiking Cadillac Mountain. Also, Sand Beach had a hiking trail that lead to a series of large rock formations. The view from that vantage point was spectacular.
Super helpful way of learning about the park!! It was raining the first few days of our trip so this audio tour was wonderful . This kept us from driving around, wondering what to do and where to go.
The app was a bit glitchy at times, it would occasionally repeat sections. But overall, was good information for a family that prefers to self guide.
Park wouldn’t take the pass. Waste of $50+ dollars. Very disappointed as we were looking forward to the tour.
Great little tour. A lot of info, unfortunately we didn’t get to see lots of the stuff that he talked about because of the weather. It was rainy & cloudy. Not the tours fault of course. But if it would have been great weather he tells you what to see.
Wonderful narration, and because of all the tips, we stopped at places we might not have. It was wonderful!
Nice to have as we traveled through the park. I hate doing this. But you want a big review It was good
The app worked as advertised, first used in Bar Harbor walking g the path the app advertised and worked well, the next day used in Acadia National Park starting at Hulls Cove and it did its job as advertised even in areas where there was no service, wi-fi or other, very informative and entertaining, make sure to download days before, would recommend
I loved this tour guide!! This was my first time at Acadia National Park, and I was overwhelmed with the plethora of options to do at the park. So a self-guided tour was just what I was looking for. Something to keep me engaged, allow me to go at my own speed, and share information all at the same time. This was a very helpful and informative tour. The narration was great! Not boring and not fast; and even if I missed something, I was able to rewind or restart the section. I also loved that it picked up where I left off. I would absolutely recommend it!
Acadia National Park is a beautiful gem. This tour helped us hit the highlights and provided value added info
There were none as I think this site and proposition is very deceiving as tickets not included. I would not recommend to anyone... Even your survey site sucks
Although it was a cloudy/rainy day, the park was clean, busy and scenic. The drive around was nice...will need to return to see sunrise at Cadillac Mtn (unable to see due to rain) and with bikes to explore more. NOTE there are fees to enter Acadia and to see sunrise at Cadillac Mtn...
Used only the walking tour bcuz inable to rent a car. Worked very well n able to rest, relisten, go at own pace.
The guided driving and walking tour was excellent. We enjoyed the freedom of choosing which locations to linger at while still feeling like you’re accompanied by an experienced guide. The app was also easy to use and worked very well. I was a little confused at first with the audio instructions that I needed to switch tours in the home screen for the Ocean Path walk but after figuring it out it was a breeze! I thought the GPS locations also worked well at starting the audio in the right spots.
This was so easy! Be sure to download while you have a signal, however. Easy to follow. Rewind to replay if needed. Great info.
Take your time to enjoy the serenity and beauty of Acadia. We used the driving tour app from Action Tour Guide and felt like the guide was riding with us. Traffic flowed smoothly for the most part. We enjoyed the short walks to scenic sites and the amazing view from Cadillac mountain.
Even though we were going the speed limit the tour monologue would all of a sudden stop and jump to the next one or repeat a previous talk. Not real impressed. But there was interesting information that we would not have known being on our own.
Thunder hole. It was amazing. All the views were beautiful and the tour was spot on! Wish we could have got reservations to Cadillac Mountain .
Easy to follow, lot of interesting local and historical information. Never lost reception, better than sitting on a tour bus with strangers.
I could not down load the app so I couldn’t use it. I paid viator for nothing and paid again at the entrance.
We loved every minute of our driving and walking tours of Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. The informative dialogs popped up perfectly as we drove or walked along. This is a fantastically beautiful area and we were very impressed! The views were incredible and fun little experiences like trying the Jordan House popovers and walking around the summit of Cadillac Mountain made great memories for us. I kept saying, “And I’m not even in the Caribbean!” as I took in the breathtaking views. Wonderful experience!
Great guide to the park. We set it up to come over the car radio and were able to pause and see the sights. Highly recommend as a way to see the sights of Acadia.
The self guided driving & walking tour of Acadia National Park was very easy to use. I downloaded it while at home on wi-fi as suggested in the email instructions and tested it out immediately afterwards. Worked like a charm even when I turned off wi-fi and data at home and in Maine. This was especially important because the park has little to no data reception. The narration went at a nice pace, the gentleman had a good voice and was easy to understand. This was our first time in Acadia and all the information on the tour was great. It was 1 of 2 tours we got from this company and would definitely use them again.
The self-guided tour was a great way to tour the park on our own schedule and pace. Lots of interesting information was included.
7 adults - all very competent- could not make app work well. Limited - would not recommend- That’s all we will comment
In the park, the points of interest and the narration were not aligned very well even though we drove slowly as was recommended. Therefore, we missed some views. Also, the tour for Cadillac Mountain was identical to the tour of the main parts of the park. IDENTICAL! We did the Bar Harbor walking tour today and that worked well.
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