Every so often, I take a weekend to go someplace fun, like Miami or Boston. I enjoy taking international trips, but those are usually one or two-week jaunts. For small weekend trips, it’s useful for me (and hopefully readers) to see what the entire weekend cost me. For Memorial Day Weekend, Ian and I, along with two friends, went camping in Acadia National Park. Already owning equipment and splitting costs four ways definitely helps to make things more affordable, but I have an inkling that this trip was not a cheap one.
Why Acadia National Park?
It wasn’t my idea. Ian is an outdoorsy person. When our mutual friend Horace brought up the idea of camping in Maine a few months back, Ian jumped at it. Since I don’t enjoy camping, I purposefully stayed out of the planning process. In fact, I didn’t even realize that we were camping in Acadia National Park until the day before our trip. 😅
Acadia National Park is a nine-hour drive from New York City. To break up the drive, we stayed in Boston Friday night, picking up a friend who was also joining us for the weekend.
One of the benefits of vacationing with these two specific people? They’ve both been Two Cents contributors, and fully understand my desire for frugality (and incessantly tease me when I spend money). The weekend was full of LeanFIRE/FatFIRE jokes (due to my most recently published post at the time).
None of us took time off for this trip, although the New Yorkers in the group did take advantage of a company half-day. That means we fit the entire weekend between Friday afternoon and Monday night.
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The Cheap Activities
When you’re in a national park, the cost of activities is incredibly low; a $25 car pass covered the cost of driving to various hike and peak locations. The Beehive Trail was one of the most thrilling hikes I’ve ever been on. (Imagine the adrenaline rush from a roller coaster, and add in a slight sense of danger.) We did the Bowl Trail and watched the sunset on Cadillac Mountain. The biggest downside was how incredibly busy the park was that weekend. Parking in some locations was hellish, and we ended up passing over other great sites like Thunder Hole.
Camping was also cheap. For $90, we had a campsite for two nights. The site was fitted with electricity and a pipe for running water, and the grounds had bathrooms and showers.
The Expensive Activities
Well… dining out was the single biggest expense of the weekend. Although we made to grocery store stops on the way out, there was just too much good food to be had.
In Boston, we stopped at Redbones, an awesome BBQ spot. I don’t even like barbeque, but I like Redbone. On the way up we stopped in Portland and Freeport to get a feel for the area (it was my first time that far north). We got lunch at Duckfat and had ice cream (a Maine must). On the way down, we stopped again at Redbones, and also did a quick pit stop at Starbucks to caffeine up. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but that added up to $102 over the whole weekend. Yikes!
Once we arrived at Mount Desert Island, we did have dinner one night in Bar Harbor, at a seafood restaurant. It was an expensive meal, although the experience was nice.
A Weekend in Acadia National Park – The Cost Breakdown
Could I have spent less on this trip? Sure. While dining outside of the park was the biggest expense over Memorial Day Weekend, many of the places we went to were destinations – places we planned on visiting just as much as the camping trip itself.
The shopping was definitely a little much, but hey, that’s what vacations are for, right? Ian enjoyed the local Bar Harbor beer so much he bought a couple six-packs at the local liquor store, and I bought one of those cheesy tourist shirts with the name of the local town printed on it.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was cooking. We didn’t do a whole lot of it, but for two meals I ate a glorious salt bomb that was ramen noodles + dried vegetables. As part of our grocery run, we picked up a bunch of ramen packs to serve as extra carbs and flavor to accompany a large volume of dehydrated vegetables that Ian had leftover from a previous trip. (Context: Last year, Ian went on a three-week trip to hike the PCT, and I discovered what it was like to be single again.)
Using Ian’s super nifty camp stove, it took very little time to boil some water with vegetables and a flavor pack, and then mix it in with the ramen noodles. Talk about a cheap and delicious salt bomb. 😋
(Bonus!) Trip Highlights
If you’re wondering whether it’s worthwhile to plan your own trip to Acadia National Park, let these help you make your decision.
Sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, which looks otherworldly
Ian’s selfie from the Beehive Trail
Sunset from Cadillac Mountain
👋🏻hiiiiiiii
Comments
Wow, this is gorgeous! I should add it to the list of weekend trips. Those restaurants sound delicious. I wrote up a trip to the Rockaways and it seems boring in comparison now!
Did you compare it to the cost of a plane ticket, or did everyone rotate driving and sleeping in the car?
With all the camping gear we packed, flying would’ve just been way too expensive! Ian and I swapped driving seats, but the multiple stops to eat good food and check out cool towns really made a difference in the driving experience. Plus, a few of those stops were destinations just as much as Acadia was.
It looks beautiful there, I want to go! That’s one of th eastern US national parks I never made it out to. Maybe a Boston + Arcadia trip should be in our future. I don’t know if we could do it quite as well priced as your trip though.
What time of year would you say is best for camping there?
Late spring/early summer, for sure – you’ll get comfortable days and cold evenings, which ideal for campfires and keeping the bugs away. I prefer crisper weather for hikes in general, and as the summer season goes on, parks tend to get more crowded, so early in the season is better.
I’m late to the party here, but damn you’re making me miss coastal Maine! We had to cancel our plans to visit in May and now your pictures aren’t helping. 😛
Glad you all had a great time in my second “home-state.” I was going to recommend a place for dinner in Bar Harbor next time, but it appears to be permanently closed. Thanks for the virtual vacation! 😀