Bar Harbor, Maine! One of my favorite places. My dad started going up to Bar Harbor when he was a kid, his family would catch the ferry from there to head to Nova Scotia to visit my grandpa’s family. They loved it so much that they started vacationing in Bar Harbor, and tradition continued through to my life. We used to camp when we went up, but now that my Grandma joins us we’ve been renting a condo the last few years 🙂

This year, the whole clan came! Our condo is myself and Martin, my dad (Dave), my nephew (Dylan), my uncle (Steven) and my Grandma! My brother (Allan), sister-in-law (Caitlyn) and their doggos (Nellie & Finn) rent a dog friendly Airbnb not far from us. And then my cousin (Holly) and her boyfriend (Nick) rent a room down the road at the same inn as Holly’s brother Jeff and his wife Nikki.

We’ve come up here so many times that we actually have a nice relaxing vacation now because we don’t feel the need to do it all. Our trip typically starts with a stop at The Holy Donut in Portland, ME on our drive up. Such. Good. Donuts. Then we drive straight on to Seawall in Southwest Harbor where we all meet and hang by the ocean while my dad grills up some food for everyone for a few hours before check-in. Then we head into town to get all settled before grabbing dinner. We almost always get Rosalie’s pizza on night one. You may know by now that I’m not a huge pizza fan. Rosalie’s is my exception. I don’t know why but it’s my favorite pizza ever. The place is seat yourself though and it’s often times mobbed, so sometimes it’s better to order it to go.

Then every night we always get ice cream at Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream. If you ever got to Bar Harbor, don’t even bother trying ice cream anywhere else. MDIIC is the best. Period.

One of my other favorite places in Bar Harbor is Thrive!! They have amazing smoothies, smoothie bowls, salads and other good for you stuff. I dream about this mango smoothie all year long. Took a little stroll with our smoothies before heading off to Thunderhole and Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park to hang out and enjoy the sunshine with the pups. Ended the day again with ice cream…it’s really hard not to when they have Nutella as a flavor!!

How gorgeous is this smoothie bowl from Thrive?!? The most gorgeous pink and so delicious! Spent this day at the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, and walking some nearby trails that grandma actually joined us on! Always on the lookout for dog friendly dinner spots so we grabbed dinner that night at Blaze. We had never been before, had some amazing fish tacos. Then we spent a little time on the common by the harbor, took a family photo and then recreated Caitlyn & I’s annual sitting on the common photo.

Had to hit up The Coffee Hound at least once this trip. I love their maple latte. Wandered around the sand bar, saw some dead jelly fish…then headed up to Cadillac Mountain. This was Nick’s first time to Bar Harbor so we had to make sure went up before they headed home. Ate dinner at Side Street Café, another favorite. Got lobster mac n cheese, because, Maine.

Last year we stumbled upon Café This Way after our original breakfast plan didn’t work out. They had amazing blueberry pancakes with crispy edges so we had to go again on Allan & Caitlyn’s last day. It was a cloudy morning which turned into a rainy day, but we decided to hike anyways…so that was fun. With just the OG crew left (our condo) we did some more hiking, hung out at Seal Harbor and Sand Beach, ate some more good food at The Docksider, Jordan Pond House (cannot leave without popovers) and a new spot to us, The Pickled Wrinkle.