It is not unusual, at this time of year, for travel sections to carry features which embrace the autumn; articles ablaze with photos that flit through a blur of pinks, reds and oranges.
And often you will hear mention made of the most celebrated example of this changing of the seasonal guard: the carnival of colour that is the “fall” in New England.
There will be more bright pictures here, too. And they will probably be pinned to one of the following hotspots: the Berkshire Hills, which rise gently in Massachusetts and Connecticut; the White Mountains of New Hampshire; the Green Mountains of Vermont.
The dramatic colours on the trees in Maine during ‘fall’ – Alamy Stock Photo
What you tend to see less frequently in this hazy spotlight are the peaceful back-woods and back-roads of Maine. While the autumnal road-trip party takes place all across the six-state region that forms the north-eastern shoulder of the United States (Rhode Island is the sixth member of the club), the biggest of these lovely jigsaw pieces is something of an outsider at the tourism feast, attracting far fewer visitors than its more popular colleagues.
Hard to reach, easy to love
There are various explanations for this shortfall, although the merest glance at the map will tell you all: Maine is one of the great northern outposts of the American landscape.
Not only is it New England’s farthest corner, but its northernmost village, Estcourt Station, lies more than 450 miles and eight hours of driving time from the regional hub, Boston.
This out-of-the-way location makes Maine tricky to reach. Particularly for Europeans. In spite of their official names, neither of the state’s two main air hubs – Portland International Jetport and Bangor International Airport – currently receive scheduled services from anywhere other than other US runways. For non-Americans, a trip to Maine will always require a change of aircraft, or a lengthy stint behind the wheel.
There is also, perhaps, a perception that Maine is too big for all but the most intrepid of travellers to attempt to absorb. Though it is actually the 12th-smallest of the 50 states, dwarfed by the likes of California, Texas and Alaska – it is so large in relation to New England that the combined area of the other five states (36,603 square miles) only just surpasses Maine’s own total (35,385 square miles).
But then, Maine’s size leaves it as the perfect setting for an autumnal journey. It makes no difference which metric you use, the “Pine Tree State” is unfailingly rustic. With just 1.4 million inhabitants, it is the ninth-least populous of the 50 states. And with a population density of 43.8 people per square mile, it is the 13th-least densely populated (it is also the least densely populated state to the east of the Mississippi). Moreover, it is almost wholly free of sprawl: its capital, Augusta, is home to a mere 19,000 souls; its largest city, Portland, swells that number to just 68,408. Boston, by contrast, has 4.9 million residents.
Portland Head Light, the historic lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine – Conny Pokorny/Alamy
With this, Maine is overwhelmingly safe. Sleepy to the point of silence, it has the lowest serious-crime rate in the whole country. There were “only” 103 violent crimes per 100,000 people in Maine in 2022. New Mexico, the worst-rated, recorded a figure of 781.
Those who make the effort, and take the long road north through the more recognised parts of New England – out of Boston, up through the witch-trial echoes of Salem, and on along the rocky flank of New Hampshire – tend to be enchanted by what they encounter.
An American Avalon
Among the state’s fans, notably, was John Steinbeck. Better known for his gritty tales set in the fields and farms of central California – such as East of Eden and Of Mice and Men – this great American novelist turned his gaze to the entire nation in his memoir Travels With Charley. Researched in 1960, eight years before his death, and in the realisation that he was in increasingly poor health, the book found the author in a generally cantankerous mood – taking an anti-clockwise road trip around the country (with his pet poodle, the titular Charley, alongside him in the passenger seat), and liking very little of what he saw.
But New England seemed to soften his grumpy heart. And Maine, in particular, drew merry praise – all seafood lunches and wonder at the coastal scenery. Steinbeck’s prose also captured the sheer scale of the state; its vast empty spaces and wilderness aesthetic.
“As I drove north, through the little towns and the increasing forest rolling away to the horizon, the season changed quickly, and out of all proportion,” he wrote. “Perhaps it was my getting away from the steadying hand of the sea, and also perhaps I was getting very far north. The houses had a snow-beaten look; many were crushed and deserted, driven to earth by the winters. In the towns, there was evidence of a population that had once lived here, and farmed and had its being, and had been driven out. The forests were marching back, and where farm wagons once had been, only the big logging trucks rumbled along. The game had come back too; deer strayed on the roads – and there were marks of bear.”
Fifteen years ago, and 50 years in his wake, I retraced Steinbeck’s precise route through Maine, and found the state little changed from the fir-shrouded giant he had committed to the page in 1960. Indeed, the wildlife sightings were exactly as he had described. Driving through Baxter State Park – a colossal slab of protected woodland and hills close to the heart of the state – I had a near-collision with a moose so enormous that, for a moment, I questioned whether I, or this gargantuan herbivore, occupied a higher position in the food chain. I can still see him now in my mind’s eye, the turn of his head as my car rounded a corner on the semi-paved track, the imperious stare, the unhurried amble on into the trees.
It is random, thrilling moments such as these, rather than the Instagram-familiar highlights of New England – Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, the Gilded-Age mansions that bejewel Rhode Island sophisticate Newport – which give Maine its magic.
The small harbour town of Stonington, known for its lobster and stone – Nancy Rose
Not that Maine is short of the sort of wonderful places that shine on social media. Its coastline – 228 gloriously ragged miles, running north-east towards Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy – is the rocky antithesis of California’s golden shore, and all the more dramatic for it. The most stunning section of it is protected as Acadia National Park – a 77-square-mile expanse of mountains, meadows, islands and forests. The prettiest segment, however, may be Deer Isle, a nugget of off-shore beauty, connected to the mainland by a marble-green suspension bridge.
Steinbeck described it in enraptured terms: “To put it plainly, this isle is like Avalon; it must disappear when you are not there.” In visiting its little harbour town, Stonington, half a century after he did – and in trying the “dark-shelled Maine lobsters from the dark water which are the best lobsters in the world… they have no equals anywhere” – I could find no fault with this high opinion.
A dark-shelled Maine lobster found in the coastal town of Stonington – Julie Holder
Simply, Maine is an autumnal miracle during September and October – but it has its charms at other times of year too. And if you are intrigued by the idea of New England’s largest but least-appreciated state, any of the three following breaks will give you a taste:
By road
America As You Like It (020 8742 8299) sells an eight-day “Coastal Maine” road trip which does as its name suggests, tracing the state’s Atlantic edge up at Acadia National Park. From £1,370pp, including flights and hire car.
By rail
New England lends itself to tours by train, especially in the autumn. Great Rail Journeys (01904 734154) offers a regular “New England in the Fall” package – a 10-day odyssey that trundles north through Massachusetts and New Hampshire to pause on the Maine seafront at Portland. From £3,299pp, including flights (to Boston).
On skis
Maine’s snow zones are less vaunted than those in New Hampshire and Vermont, and are certainly less eulogised than the sparkling slopes of Colorado, but if you want to ski in this farthest corner of the American north-east, its ruggedness makes for options aplenty. Sugarloaf, in the Carrabassett Valley, is the main event, its pistes running down the flank of the state’s third-tallest mountain. A seven-night getaway to the four-star Sugarloaf Mountain Hotel, flying from Heathrow to Bangor (via Washington) on December 13, costs from £1,151pp, via Expedia (020 3024 8211).
