Things to Do in Maine with Kids
Maine is one of the easiest states in the country to visit with kids, and it has nothing to do with theme parks. The best things to do in Maine with kids are mostly simple: ride a ferry across Casco Bay, eat fried clams on a pier, watch puffins from a boat, ride a chairlift ...
Maine is one of the easiest states in the country to visit with kids, and it has nothing to do with theme parks. The best things to do in Maine with kids are mostly simple: ride a ferry across Casco Bay, eat fried clams on a pier, watch puffins from a boat, ride a chairlift up a mountain in July. Almost everything is outdoors, almost nothing requires a reservation months in advance, and the distances between regions are short enough that you can mix beach days, harbor towns, and mountains in a single week.
This guide is organized by region — Portland, the southern beaches, the Midcoast, and the western mountains — with a rainy-day section and picks by age at the end, because a week in Maine with a toddler looks nothing like a week with a thirteen-year-old.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Base your family in one region and day-trip from there. Portland gives you the most variety (ferries, a children’s museum, ballgames, beaches 20 minutes away). Old Orchard Beach is the classic sand-and-amusements week. The Midcoast is for puffin cruises and garden trolls; Bethel is for mountain kids. Everything in this guide is within a 90-minute drive of one of those bases.
Portland, Maine with Kids
Portland gets pitched as a food-and-cocktails city, but it is quietly one of the best small cities in New England for children. The peninsula is compact, the waterfront is working (real fishing boats, real ferries), and there are enough indoor options that a foggy day doesn’t sink the trip.
Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine
The anchor. The museum’s home at Thompson’s Point has three floors of climbing, water play, a pretend lobster boat, and live theater programming. It absorbs toddlers through about age nine for a solid half day. Thompson’s Point itself has food vendors and open lawn in summer, so you don’t have to plan lunch around it — it’s already there.
Ride a Casco Bay Lines ferry
The cheapest great activity in Portland. Casco Bay Lines runs year-round ferries from the Old Port to the islands; the 15–20 minute run to Peaks Island is the family classic. On Peaks you can rent bikes or a golf cart and loop the island’s back shore in about an hour — rocky beaches, tide pools, and views that make everyone quiet down for a minute. Kids treat the ferry itself as the attraction, which it is.
Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad
A 40-minute narrated ride in antique two-foot-gauge rail cars along the Eastern Waterfront, with views of Casco Bay, Fort Gorges, and Bug Light. It runs from late May through October with multiple departures a day, plus themed rides (ice cream trains in summer, pumpkin trains in fall). Under-tens are the sweet spot.
Portland Head Light and Fort Williams Park
Technically Cape Elizabeth, ten minutes from downtown. Maine’s most photographed lighthouse sits inside a 90-acre park with cliff paths, a beach, ruined fort batteries kids can scramble around, and enough open grass for a full afternoon. Free to enter; bring a kite. There’s usually a food truck cluster in the park all summer.
A Sea Dogs game at Hadlock Field
The Portland Sea Dogs are the Red Sox Double-A affiliate, and Hadlock Field is minor-league baseball done right: cheap tickets, a mascot in a seal costume, and a mini Green Monster in left field. Evening games in July and August sell well — buy ahead a few days.
East End Beach and the Eastern Promenade
Portland’s own swimming beach, at the bottom of the Eastern Prom. The water is cold and the sand is coarse, but it’s ten minutes from downtown, there’s a playground up the hill, and the paved Eastern Prom trail is stroller- and scooter-friendly with the best harbor views in the city.
Portland also makes the best base for exploring wider — the lighthouses, beaches, and towns in our day trips from Portland guide are all doable with kids in the car.
The Southern Coast: Beaches, Piers, and Amusement Parks
South of Portland is where Maine does classic summer: seven-mile beaches, arcade piers, and the state’s two real amusement parks. If your kids’ idea of vacation is sand plus rides, this is the region.
Old Orchard Beach and Palace Playland
Old Orchard Beach is the family capital of the Maine coast — seven miles of genuinely swimmable sand (warmer than most of Maine, thanks to the shallow slope) with a century-old pier and Palace Playland, New England’s only beachfront amusement park, right on the sand. Ferris wheel, coaster, arcade, fried dough. It is loud, sandy, and unpretentious, and kids remember it for years. Our guide to staying in Old Orchard Beach with family covers the town in more depth.
Funtown Splashtown USA (Saco)
Ten minutes inland from OOB, Funtown Splashtown is Maine’s biggest amusement park — a ride park and water park on one property, home to Excalibur, a genuinely good wooden coaster, plus a full slate of water slides and a new all-ages splash lagoon. The ride park opens in late May; the water park side typically opens mid-to-late June. Budget a full day and go early on hot weekends.
York’s Wild Kingdom and the Nubble
Further south in York: a small, old-fashioned zoo-and-rides combo that’s ideal for the under-eight crowd, plus Short Sands Beach and Nubble Light — the lighthouse-on-an-island photo everyone takes. York pairs well as a day trip if you’re based in OOB or Wells.
Wells, Ogunquit, and the quieter sand
If the pier scene sounds like too much, the beaches between Wells and Ogunquit trade rides for space: long, flat, soft-sand strands where the tide goes out a quarter mile and leaves warm pools behind. The Marginal Way in Ogunquit — a paved mile-and-a-quarter cliff path — is stroller-friendly and short enough for small legs, with tide pools at the Perkins Cove end. One family-planning note that applies to the whole coast: Maine ocean water is cold, usually low-to-mid 60s even in August. Kids don’t care; adults should pack accordingly.
The Midcoast: Puffins, Gardens, and Boat Rides
An hour or so north of Portland, the coast turns from beaches to peninsulas, and the kid activities turn from rides to boats and trails. This region rewards slightly older kids — roughly six and up — who can handle a two-hour boat trip or a long garden walk.
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (Boothbay)
Don’t let “botanical gardens” fool you — this is one of the best kids’ attractions in the state. The 300-acre property in Boothbay includes a dedicated children’s garden with a story barn, treehouse, and hands-on everything, plus five giant wooden trolls hidden along the forest trails by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. Troll-hunting is a legitimate two-hour quest that gets even jaded ten-year-olds hiking without complaint. Buy timed tickets ahead in July and August.
Puffin cruises
Maine is the only state in the U.S. where Atlantic puffins nest, and mid-June through early August is the window to see them. Hardy Boat Cruises runs trips from New Harbor to Eastern Egg Rock (about 90 minutes round trip — the short option, good for younger kids), and Cap’n Fish’s runs puffin and whale trips out of Boothbay Harbor. Bring layers even in July; it is always colder on the water than at the dock.
Freeport and the flagship L.L. Bean store
On the way north, Freeport’s L.L. Bean flagship campus is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — a fact kids find delightful at any hour — with an indoor trout pond, the giant Bean Boot out front, and outdoor-gear browsing that doubles as entertainment. Twenty minutes further inland in Gray, the Maine Wildlife Park houses non-releasable native animals — moose, black bears, lynx — and is the most reliable way for kids to actually see a moose in Maine.
Rockland’s breakwater and boat-town extras
If your route reaches Rockland, walk the Rockland Breakwater — a mile of flat granite blocks running straight out into the harbor to a lighthouse at the end. It feels like walking on water, and kids who need a mission get one (calm days only; there are gaps between the stones, so keep toddlers by the hand). Nearby, the Owls Head Transportation Museum flies and drives its collection — antique planes and Model Ts that actually run on event weekends, which lands very differently with kids than glass-case museums do.
The Western Mountains: Maine’s Outdoor Playground
Two hours west of the coast, the Bethel area flips the script — mountains instead of beaches, swimming holes instead of surf. In winter it’s Sunday River ski country; in summer it’s the least crowded family region in this guide.
- Ride the Sunday River Chondola. The resort spins its Chondola lift on summer and fall weekends — a seven-minute ride to the top of North Peak in an open six-person chair or an enclosed gondola cabin (pick the cabin with littles). Views of the Mahoosuc Range, easy summit trails, and ice cream at the top.
- Grafton Notch State Park. Screw Auger Falls is the family stop: a dramatic gorge and waterfall about 100 yards from the parking lot, with smooth ledges upstream where kids wade on hot days. Moose Cave and Mother Walker Falls are short-walk add-ons along the same road.
- Swim a real Maine swimming hole. Locals cool off in the rivers and ponds around Bethel rather than pools. Ask your host — everyone has a favorite spot within fifteen minutes.
- Winter, obviously. Sunday River is one of New England’s best learn-to-ski mountains, with a dedicated ski school and terrain-based learning zones for kids.
The full season-by-season rundown — including golf, mountain biking, and where to eat in town — is in our guide to things to do in Bethel, Maine.
Rainy Day Things to Do in Maine with Kids
You will get a rainy day — plan on one per week. Maine’s coastal weather is honest about it: when the fog sits down, it sits down all day. Here’s the indoor bench, roughly south to north:
- Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine (Portland) — the strongest wet-weather option in the state for under-tens; see above. It fills up fast on rainy summer days, so arrive at opening.
- Portland Museum of Art — better with kids than you’d think in small doses; under-21s are free.
- Bayside Bowl (Portland) — a proper Portland institution: bowling lanes, good food, and a rooftop when the weather turns back.
- Len Libby Candies (Scarborough) — home of Lenny, a life-size, 1,700-pound chocolate moose. A 20-minute stop that lands far better than it sounds.
- L.L. Bean flagship (Freeport) — 24/7, free, indoor, and genuinely diverting for an hour or two (see above).
- Seashore Trolley Museum (Kennebunkport) — the world’s oldest electric railway museum; the trolley rides run rain or shine and the restoration barns are covered.
- The arcades at Palace Playland and the OOB pier — the time-honored rainy-day plan on the southern beaches. Bring quarters and lower your standards.
Best Picks by Age
Toddlers and preschoolers (0–5)
Keep the radius small: the Children’s Museum, East End Beach, the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad, Len Libby’s chocolate moose, and low-tide sandbar time at Old Orchard Beach or Willard Beach. The Peaks Island ferry works at this age too — short, novel, and there’s a beach by the dock. Skip the puffin boats; 90 minutes on cold open water is a coin flip with a three-year-old.
Elementary age (6–11)
This is Maine’s sweet spot. Troll-hunting at the botanical gardens, puffin cruises, Funtown’s coasters, tide-pooling at Fort Williams, a Sea Dogs night game, biking Peaks Island, Screw Auger Falls. You could fill two weeks without repeating a thing.
Tweens and teens
Give them motion and independence: sea kayak tours out of Portland or the Midcoast harbors, the Chondola plus real summit hikes at Sunday River, surf lessons on the southern beaches (Higgins and Long Sands both have summer surf schools), Palace Playland at night, and the Old Port’s food scene — teenagers respect a city where the donut and lobster-roll lines are worth standing in.
Where Families Stay in Maine
One honest observation from managing family stays all over this state: the trip works better in a whole home than a hotel room. Kids go to bed at eight and the adults still have a living room. Beach gear dries in the laundry instead of the bathtub. Breakfast happens in a real kitchen at 6:45 a.m. without anyone finding shoes first. Everrow’s homes come with in-house cleaning teams and a local Maine-based crew on call 24/7 — and we never ask our guests to do any cleaning at checkout, which matters when checkout morning already involves negotiating a five-year-old into a car seat.
For a town-by-town look at where families actually base themselves — southern beaches vs. Portland vs. the mountains — start with our guide to the best places to stay in Maine with kids, and the Old Orchard Beach family guide if the pier week is calling.
Stay close to everything in this guide.
A small collection of Everrow-managed homes within a short walk or drive of the places in this guide — chosen and maintained by a local team.
