Ferry Beach State Park
Name: Ferry Beach State Park
Location: 95 Bayview Road, Saco, ME 04072
Activities: beach, swimming, walking trails, nature center, boardwalk, fishing
Dog-friendly: Yes, on leash
Hours: 9:00a.m.-sunset
Season: Memorial Day-September 30th
Camping: No
Fees: Yes
Ferry Beach State Park is a popular summer destination in Southern Maine, and it’s easy to see why. The park offers walking trails, a picnic area, nature center, and a beautiful sandy beach. It’s beach far outweighs Old Orchard Beach, which tends to be overcrowded and filled with litter. Although there is a fee to enter the park, it offers great parking and changing rooms, which thoroughly make it worth the money.
This park is one of my favorite spots for a morning walk. It offers a few different trails for walkers and features a small pond, ocean views, bridges, and boardwalks. Most of the trails are loops, which means you can shorten or lengthen your walk as much as you like. The total length of all of the trails combined is 1.7 miles.
After walking on the forest trails, I like to have lunch either in the picnic area or walk down the boardwalk to the beach and eat lunch by the water. If i’m feeling very brave, I might even take a swim in the ocean (keyword: very). I’ve never been a huge fan of swimming in the ocean, but it sure is beautiful to look at.
During the winter months, the trails are perfect for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. One of my favorite things to do is snowshoe on the trails to the pond and then go skating. Just be careful to make sure the pond is frozen over.
The park is open from April-September. In the off season, people are still welcome to use the trails, but the gate is closed, so you have to park at the gate and walk on the road until you get to the trailhead. Pets are allowed on a leash all year long, but they are only permitted on the beach during the off-season.
