Ferry Beach State Park hides between Scarborough's suburban sprawl and Old Orchard's carnival glitter, but the moment you cross the footbridge over the tidal creek, you enter a different Maine entirely. The sand here runs coarse and tiger-striped, packed firm enough for barefoot running at low tide when the water retreats past Stratton Island on the horizon. Behind the dunes, a rare tupelo swamp filters sunlight through gnarled trunks that flush crimson each October.
“One of southern Maine's few beaches backed by a tupelo swamp ecosystem, creating a dual landscape of dunes and wetland forest.”
Credit: UnsplashLong-tail boats moored in clear water
The beach curves gently northward, sheltered enough that even when September swells pound Wells and Ogunquit, Ferry Beach offers knee-high rollers perfect for novice bodysurfers. Families colonize the mid-beach zone with popup tents and boogie boards, while couples migrate toward the rock jetty at the southern end where tidepools trap hermit crabs and periwinkles. The bathhouse, built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, still smells faintly of cedar and sunscreen.
Come in any season and you'll find someone walking the hard-packed sand: January joggers in fleece, April birders tracking piping plovers, August toddlers wielding plastic shovels. The park's nature trails loop through woods where you might spot white-tailed deer at dusk, then spit you back onto the beach where the lighthouse at Wood Island blinks its evening code across Saco Bay.
