Bar Harbor to Boston Driving Time?

We have a cottage near Bar Harbor w/ a Sunday-to-Sunday rental period, but our flight is leaving Boston on Saturday, July 4, @ 4:30 PM. As it is, we%26#39;re paying for 7 nights, but can only stay 6. I really don%26#39;t want to have to give up Friday night too. Is it possible to drive from Bar Harbor to Logan Airport and make a 4:30 flight? How early would we have to be on the road to be able to make it?

Or am I really risking it and should just eat 2 nights and get a place closer to Boston for Friday night?

Any input would be appreciated. thank you!!

Bar Harbor to Boston Driving Time?

You should probably be at Logan by 2:30. The drive from Bar Harbor to Portland is three hours, if you take the interstate from Bangor. After that, it gets iffy because of traffic. July is a very busy time. But I would say you could definitely make it from Portland to Logan in another three hours. So you have to be on the road from Bar Harbor by around 8 a.m. Doable.

Bar Harbor to Boston Driving Time?

Great! Thanks so much! We%26#39;re the type family that can get up as early as needed to make something work, but I feared it just wasn%26#39;t feasible. I read on a post that Camden alone was 2 hours%26#39; drive from Bar Harbor, and it scared me.

(My best friend just paid an extra $3000 to buy new tickets to Florida to make a cruise ship departure cus%26#39; they missed their original flight by minutes. I didn%26#39;t want to wind up paying a huge price just for having tried to save the expense of 1 night%26#39;s lodging.)

Leave early as suggested so you do not get stressed if there%26#39;s a long backup to pay the obnoxious toll in New Hampshire.

Uhhh . . . ';obnoxious toll in NH?'; Is there a big bridge we have to cross?

The back-up is at the NH toll booth. For a trip such as yours and assuming that you are coming from CA, I would look into purchasing trip insurance to see if a signifcant delay is covered. The Camden reference at 2 hrs is appropriate but coastal meandering - over the river and through the woods. bonniemaev and others are right - plan to leave early.

OMG . . . I%26#39;ve been doing some searching on NH tolls. You have to PAY to drive on the highways -- what a concept. I had no idea. (Calif. girl born and raised; we just pay to cross bridges. Bet your highways are in better shape than our%26#39;s with all that money.)

I am SO GLAD this issue was raised so I can be prepared with change. I saw some posters who weren%26#39;t prepared and are worried about fines for nonpayment. I already got a $286 parking fine in York, don%26#39;t need a big fine on this vacation too.

Think we%26#39;ll leave Bar Harbor at 6:00 AM w/ plenty of change to be on the safe side.

Thank you all!

The references to a Bar Harbor-Camden route and time are with respect to driving on Rte. 1. On the interstate, you will not encounter the wretched Camden traffic (or that of Wiscasset). Nontheless, there are toll booths in southern Maine (part of I-95) is a tollway and certainly in New Hampshire.

The posssible bright spot is that on that day, more people are likely to be heading in the opposite direction.

Going from Bar Harbor to Bangor via US 1A and picking up I-395 westbound to I-95 southbound from there will get you out of almost all of the traffic except for what little you may encounter in Ellsworth itself....

A word of caution though as you get south of Augusta...looking at a Maine map may tempt you to take I-295 between Gardiner and South Portland to avoid paying the turnpike tolls on the Maine turnpike. Don%26#39;t do it!! At least not this summer...

The Maine Department of Transportation has a major highway construction project slated for I-295 between Gardiner and Brunswick, with the southbound I-295 traffic being detoured onto US Route 201...which will take you through several small communities with reduced speed limits.

Since time is an issue, I%26#39;d strongly recommend you stay on I-95....the added turnpike tolls will be more than offset by the time you%26#39;ll save.

The DOT website talks about northbound 295 construction---is the southbound stuff scheduled for later?

No -- the southbound section from Gardiner to Brunswick was done last summer.....but....when they work on the northbound side this summer, they%26#39;re going to be using the southbound side for northbound traffic!

I know it sounds strange, but there is a convoluted logic that goes something like this....

When they did the southbound side last summer, they closed the southbound lanes between Gardiner and Topsham completely....no non-construction traffic allowed! Southbound traffic was detoured off I-295 in Gardiner and directed over a detour that used US 201 through Richmond and Bowdoinham -- it parallels I-295 about two miles to the west and used to be the primary highway between Topsham and Gardiner. As part of that detour, they made up special signing, did special pavement striping, etc. It actually worked out much better than everyone expected. Northbound I-295 traffic continued to use the northbound side as if no construction was happening.

Fast-forward now to this year. They%26#39;re going to be closing all northbound lanes to all non-construction traffic. But rather than re-make the detour signs to handle northbound instead of southbound traffic, including creating numerous left-hand turn situations, they%26#39;re going to once again divert southbound I-295 traffic onto the same US 201 detour they used last summer. And they%26#39;re going to build cross-overs in the median strips in Topsham and Gardiner (not sure about other locations but there aren%26#39;t that many exits between Topsham and Gardiner anyway). Those crossovers will take the northbound traffic in Topsham and cross it over into the southbound lanes of I-295 until it gets to Gardiner, where it will cross back through the median to the northbound lanes beyond the construction area.

It sounds strange but it%26#39;s a technique that has worked fairly well in other states and, with the US 201 detour already established from last year and still fairly fresh in the minds of the ';locals';, it%26#39;s much less expensive than putting up twenty or so miles of Jersey barriers down the middle of the southbound lane to carry one-lane traffic in each direction....a technique sometimes used for shorter Interstate reconstruction projects.

Maine DOT has set up a web page for the project -- you can get to it from their homepage at MaineDOT.gov