Ferry Beach State Park, Saco: Sand and Tupelos

The short version

Just over a hundred acres at 95 Bayview Road in Saco, on the ocean side of Route 9 between Old Orchard Beach and the Camp Ellis jetty. A wide sand beach with dunes, a bathhouse, and roughly two miles of easy interconnected nature trails through the woods and swamp behind it.

There is no camping — this is a day-use park that closes at sunset. The beach is why most people come; the trails are why they come back.

Visiting

The park is run by the Bureau of Parks and Lands, the division of Maine's Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry that manages the state park system. The structure is standard: a seasonal staffed window, a day-use fee at the gate with a lower rate for Maine residents, and self-service payment when the gatehouse is closed. Current rates are on maine.gov.

Parking is the whole game. The lot is small — far smaller than the beach it serves — and on a hot July weekend it fills by mid-morning, after which the gate closes until spaces open. There is no overflow lot and the surrounding roads are posted. Arrive before ten or after three.

The beach faces southeast into Saco Bay, backed by fenced dunes. The surf is modest — a wading and body-surfing beach rather than a serious one — and the sand runs for miles in both directions, so you can walk out of the crowd in about ten minutes.

The honest drawbacks are two. First, the beach has been narrowing for a century, so at high tide on a big moon there is much less sand than the photographs suggest — check the tide before you commit an afternoon. Second, the marsh and woodland trails produce greenhead flies at the height of summer, and they bite hard enough to end a walk. Late spring and September are the pleasant months back there.

The tupelo swamp, and why it matters

Behind the dunes, the Tupelo Trail runs on boardwalk through a red maple and tupelo swamp. Black tupelo — also called black gum — is a southern tree, its range running the eastern seaboard from Florida up through the mid-Atlantic and thinning fast in New England. The stand here is one of the northernmost of any size on the coast, a relict population in a pocket of wet ground with the right conditions.

Individual tupelos are also extraordinarily long-lived. Trees of this species elsewhere in New England have been dated past four hundred years — they grow slowly and keep going as hollow shells for centuries. In October the leaves turn deep scarlet earlier than anything around them, which is the easiest time to pick them out.

The park protects the swamp for exactly this reason. It is twenty minutes on flat boardwalk, and almost everyone who visits Ferry Beach skips it in favor of the sand.

What the jetty did to this coast

Look southwest along the beach and you will see the jetty at Camp Ellis, where the Saco River meets the sea. That structure explains the shape of everything around it.

The Army Corps of Engineers built the north jetty in the nineteenth century to keep the river mouth navigable, and it worked. What nobody accounted for was littoral drift — the steady movement of sand along the shore. The jetty interrupted it, sand that would have fed Camp Ellis was trapped or diverted offshore, and the shoreline behind it began to retreat.

It has never stopped. Camp Ellis has lost streets and houses to the ocean, and the effort to armor and re-engineer that corner of the bay has run for decades without resolution. Ferry Beach sits downdrift of the problem, which is part of why its sand budget is tighter than it once was.

The park's name is older than any of it. Before there were bridges over the lower Saco, a ferry crossed near here, and the name stuck to the beach and then to the road. It also causes confusion: there is a separate Ferry Beach in Scarborough (4.7 from 339 reviews) on the Nonesuch River, and a Ferry Beach retreat center in Saco that is not the state park. Navigate to Bayview Road, not to the name.

Nearby

• Huot's Seafood Restaurant (4.3 from 1,038 reviews) — two kilometers away at Camp Ellis, a fried-seafood institution at the end of the road by the jetty.
• Broad Reach Adventures (5.0 from 377 reviews) — two kilometers off, the best-rated charter operation in the immediate area.
• Rapid Ray's (4.6 from 1,035 reviews) — five kilometers inland in downtown Saco, a counter-service burger and lobster roll stand that has been there for generations.
• Palace Diner (4.7 from 1,196 reviews) — five kilometers away in Biddeford, a fifteen-seat 1927 dining car and one of the most-booked breakfasts in the state. Expect to wait.
• Scarborough Beach (4.6 from 601 reviews) — ten kilometers northeast, the state park beach with bigger surf and its own parking problem; see our Scarborough Beach guide.
• Seashore Trolley Museum (4.7 from 1,032 reviews) — eleven kilometers south in Kennebunkport, the largest electric railway museum in the world, with restored streetcars you can ride.

More options along this coast are in our guides to things to do in Saco and beaches near Portland.

FAQ

Is there camping at Ferry Beach State Park?

No. Ferry Beach is day use only and closes at sunset. The nearest state park camping is well inland, though Saco and Old Orchard Beach have a dense concentration of private campgrounds within a few miles.

How early should you arrive at Ferry Beach State Park?

Before ten on a summer weekend. The lot is small relative to demand and the gate closes once it is full, reopening only as cars leave. Late afternoon is the other reliable window.

What is the Tupelo Trail at Ferry Beach?

A short boardwalk loop through a swamp holding a rare northern stand of black tupelo, a tree whose range mostly stops well to the south. It is flat, takes about twenty minutes, and is at its best in early October when the tupelos turn scarlet ahead of everything else.

Can you swim at Ferry Beach State Park?

Yes. It is a sand beach on Saco Bay with a gentle slope and modest surf, easier with children than the more exposed beaches north of here. The water stays cold through June and is most tolerable in August.