Acadia National Park

Acadia wakes before anywhere else in the United States. Cadillac Mountain catches the first light to touch the continent, turning its pink granite summit gold while the rest of Maine is still dark. Below, the Atlantic hits Thunder Hole at the right angle and detonates — a forty-foot spray and a sound like a cannon shot that carries across the headland. The air smells of balsam fir and salt, and the boundary between forest and ocean is measured in footsteps.

Acadia National Park sits on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine, where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Atlantic Ocean — the only place on the eastern seaboard where mountains rise directly from the sea. Cadillac Mountain is the first point in the continental United States where sunrise touches land each autumn, drawing visitors who drive or hike to the summit to claim the moment. John D. Rockefeller Jr. built forty-five miles of carriage roads through the park exclusively for horses and walkers — no motor vehicles have ever been permitted on the network. Jordan Pond House has served warm popovers on the lawn above the pond since 1893, with the same unobstructed view of the Bubbles mountains. The park's coastline includes Sand Beach, one of the few sandy beaches in Maine, where the water temperature rarely exceeds 13°C even in August — a fact that does not stop swimmers.