Kittery Outlets: How to Shop the Route 1 Strip

What and where

The outlets occupy a stretch of US Route 1 in Kittery, immediately after the Piscataqua River bridge from Portsmouth, New Hampshire — the first Maine exit off I-95 heading north. More than a hundred storefronts are spread across separate plazas on both sides of the highway, most of them brand-operated outlet stores rather than independent shops.

The critical thing to understand is the layout. Each plaza has its own parking lot and its own cluster of tenants, and while sidewalks and crosswalks connect them, the distances and the traffic mean most people drive between groups of stores. Nobody publishes this, and it is the single reason first-time visitors report the place as exhausting.

Store rosters change constantly here — tenants come and go every year — so build your trip from the current directory on the outlet association's own site rather than any third-party list, including this one. What follows is the part that does not change.

The strategy: park three times, not once

Pick out the three or four stores you actually care about, note which plaza each sits in, and plan to park separately for each cluster. Working north to south or south to north in a single pass, using the traffic lights to turn, is far less painful than crossing Route 1 on foot with bags.

Some specifics worth knowing:

• Traffic peaks are predictable. Saturday midday in July and August, the Friday of any long weekend, and the run-up to Christmas are the hard days. Route 1 here backs up into the bridge traffic, which means the queue starts before you have left New Hampshire.
• Weekday mornings are a different place entirely. Same stores, a fifth of the cars.
• Left turns are the enemy. On the busy stretch, plan a route that keeps you turning right into lots wherever possible.
• Shoulder seasons are the best value, both for stock clearance and for parking. Late April to early June and the weeks after Columbus Day are the sweet spot.

The sales-tax question, honestly answered

This comes up constantly and the answer surprises people: Maine charges sales tax, and New Hampshire does not. Kittery is one bridge into Maine from a state with no general sales tax at all, so on a large purchase — furniture, electronics, an expensive coat — the tax you pay here is money you would not pay five minutes back across the river in Portsmouth.

That does not make the trip pointless. Outlet discounts on brands that have no Portsmouth presence will usually beat the tax difference on ordinary clothing and shoes, and plenty of what is sold here simply is not stocked over the border. But if you are making one big-ticket purchase and both options exist, do the arithmetic rather than assuming that crossing into Maine is the bargain. Current rates are on maine.gov; they are not something to take from a travel article.

Why the outlets ended up here at all

The location is not an accident of retail planning. Kittery is the oldest incorporated town in Maine, dating to the 1640s, and Route 1 through it was the main coastal highway carrying every summer visitor into the state before the interstate opened alongside it. When the through-traffic moved to I-95, that left a wide, well-built commercial road with an enormous captive audience one exit away and land that was cheap by coastal standards. Outlet developers arrived through the 1980s and 1990s and never left.

The other half of the story is the shipyard. Despite the name, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard sits in Kittery, Maine, on an island in the Piscataqua — a fact that annoys New Hampshire and delights Mainers. It has anchored the local economy for more than two centuries and is why this corner of the state has always been more industrial, more year-round and less quaint than the beach towns twenty minutes north. The outlets are the newest layer on a town that has been a working place since before Maine was a state.

It also explains the two Kitterys you can visit in one day. Route 1 is retail and traffic. Turn southeast onto Route 103 toward Kittery Point and within five minutes you are on a narrow coastal road past tidal creeks, a colonial burying ground and a fort, with almost no commerce at all.

Make a day of it: what else is in Kittery

Shopping fills a morning. These are the real, well-reviewed places that fill the rest, all within a short drive of the outlet strip:

• Fort McClary State Historic Site, Pepperrell Rd, Kittery Point — 4.7 from 1,308 reviews. A hexagonal timber blockhouse on a granite bluff over the river mouth, ten minutes from the outlets and one of the most photogenic small forts in New England. We cover it in the Kittery Point and Fort McClary guide.
• Fort Foster, 76 Pocahontas Rd, Kittery Point — 4.7 from 694 reviews. A town park on Gerrish Island with small beaches, a pier and open views out to the lighthouses at the harbor entrance.
• Robert's Maine Grill, 326 US-1, Kittery — 4.6 from 3,396 reviews, and the highest review volume of any restaurant in town. It is on the outlet strip itself, which makes it the obvious lunch stop and also the busiest.
• The Black Birch, 2 Government St, Kittery — 4.8 from 586 reviews. In Kittery Foreside, the old village center by the bridge, and a better dinner than anything on Route 1.
• Buoy Shack, 3 Badgers Island W, Kittery — 4.4 from 336 reviews, on the island in the middle of the river with a view back at Portsmouth.
• Take Flight Aerial Adventure Course, 506 Blue Star Memorial Highway — 4.9 from 316 reviews. An indoor and outdoor ropes course, and the best answer to a child who has had enough of shopping.
• Kittery Art Association, 2 Walker St — 4.8 from 27 reviews, a small volunteer-run gallery in the Foreside.

Ten minutes further north on Route 1, York adds beaches and the Wiggly Bridge (4.7 from 250 reviews), reputedly the smallest suspension bridge in the country. More at things to do in Kittery.

How Kittery compares to Freeport

Maine's other big shopping destination is Freeport, two hours north, and the two are not interchangeable. Freeport is a walkable village with the outlets built into a real downtown, anchored by a single flagship store, and you can leave the car in one place all day. Kittery has more outlet stores, cheaper stock and worse walking. If you want the shopping to be the day out, Freeport wins; if you want to buy specific things efficiently on the way somewhere else, Kittery does. Our guide to Freeport beyond L.L.Bean covers the other end of that comparison.

Frequently asked questions

How many stores are at the Kittery outlets?

More than a hundred, spread across roughly a dozen separate plazas on both sides of Route 1 rather than under one roof. The tenant list changes every year as leases turn over, so check the current directory on the outlet association's website before you go — a store that was there last summer may not be there now.

Is it cheaper to shop in Kittery or Portsmouth?

It depends on what you are buying. New Hampshire has no general sales tax and Maine does, so Portsmouth wins on any large purchase available in both places. Kittery wins where the outlet discount on a specific brand is bigger than the tax difference, or where the brand simply has no store across the river. For ordinary clothing and shoes, Kittery usually comes out ahead.

When is the best time to visit the Kittery outlets?

Weekday mornings, and ideally in the shoulder seasons — late spring or the weeks after the fall foliage rush. Summer Saturdays and holiday weekends put outlet traffic on top of bridge traffic on the same stretch of Route 1, and the parking lots fill in the order you would least like. Winter weekdays are the quietest of all.

What else is there to do in Kittery besides shopping?

Turn off Route 1 toward Kittery Point and you get Fort McClary State Historic Site, Fort Foster's beaches and harbor views, and a coastal road with none of the commercial strip's character. The Foreside, the old village by the bridge, has the town's best restaurants and a small gallery scene. Most of it is within ten minutes of the outlet parking lots.