Maine

Maine is where the country runs out of land and gives itself over to the sea, and the meeting of the two produces some of the most bracing beauty in America. This is a coast of pink granite ledges and dark spruce, of tides that swing dramatically and mornings wrapped in fog that burns off to reveal a jeweled harbor. The rhythm of life here still turns on the water, on the lobster boats that head out before dawn and the buoys that dot every cove, and there is an honesty to the place that draws people back year after year.

The crown jewel is Acadia National Park, where mountains rise straight from the ocean and carriage roads wind through forests to summits with views clear to the horizon. It is the first place in the country to greet the sunrise, and to stand atop its highest peak in the early light is a small rite of passage. At its edge sits Bar Harbor, a genteel resort town of Gilded Age summer cottages and ice cream parlors, the perfect base for exploring the island’s trails and tide pools. Together they draw crowds, and deservedly, but the wildness is never far away.

South and west along the coast, the character shifts from rugged to picturesque. Camden nestles between wooded hills and a harbor full of windjammers, arguably the loveliest of the state’s sailing towns. Kennebunkport offers clapboard elegance and a certain old-money reserve, its sea captains’ mansions now inns, its beaches wide and cold. And Portland, the state’s largest city, has become one of the great small food destinations in the country, a working waterfront reborn as a place of oyster bars, breweries, and cobblestone charm.

What unites these places is a shared insistence on being exactly what they are, unglamorous, weathered, and real. Maine does not soften its edges for visitors; it invites you instead to pull on a sweater, order the lobster, and watch the fog roll in. Do so, and the state will lodge itself somewhere permanent in your affections.