Since we’re nearing the end of Peak Maine Season—that moment in September when 90% of travelers forget the coast and turn inland to chase cider doughnuts and maple forests—this seems like the right week to talk about something special in Ogunquit. If you’ve ever attempted driving into the center of this Southern Maine beach village in the middle of summer, when hundreds of cars lock horns at a brain-bending five way intersection that’s always backed up, you know that there only two possible outcomes.
Maybe you keep your distance from Ogunquit on future summer trips through the region, in the same way that you would steer clear of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. But perhaps the sea salt-dusted ambience of Ogunquit charmed your pants off so assertively that you were able to look beyond the traffic and see yourself here every summer. You check into one of the beachside inns and resorts, you park yourself in an Adirondack chair on the lawn, and you gaze at the craggy shores and the Atlantic Ocean—just like Alexander the Great seeing “the breadth of his domain.” And you weep, just as the Macedonian king wept. For there are no more worlds to conquer.
I can only imagine what it feels like to fall in love with Ogunquit. Because ever since the summer of 2018—when I was doing the Coastal Maine field reporting for a hiking guidebook and I made the mistake of driving through town to avoid some of the tolls on I-95—my relationship with Ogunquit has been one of anxious avoidance. But that changed back in June, when I had to pick up a friend from one of the local beachside resorts where she had been staying briefly with family. (The two of us were heading north for some brushier hiking in the Midcoast region.) Given the prices of lodging, the number of Teslas that I saw in the resort parking lot, and how difficult it was to persuade the lot attendant to allow me to park there briefly and fetch my friend, I expected an unobstructed vista of the ocean, exclusively for resort guests. But what I saw instead is one of New England’s great miracles of public access to the outdoors.