Wells Beach

January 28, 2024

Wells Beach, Wells, Maine

I took my three boys to visit Wells Beach in the spring on a rainy day and it was fun, but there’s some things I didn’t love. Here’s why:

Getting there

Most of the places I visit I am doing so for the first time and they are with kids. I rely on Maps to bring me to where I need to go and for Wells Beach, I just entered in Wells Beach and drove to where it was taking me. I ended up down the coast into a neighborhood. When I crossed over the water, down Mile Road, I took the left like the maps app told me to. What you need to know is the public parking lot is straight ahead, next to Lafayette’s Oceanfront Resort. There is also more parking at the end of Atlantic Ave, past all of the houses. My maps app told me “I had arrived” right in the middle of Atlantic Ave with no public parking.

Parking

The parking lot itself is a little small for how many people visit in the summer! I can imagine it fills up quick on a hot summer day. There are a few other parking lots that you could try, other than the one at the end of Mile Road but they are all small. The lots have metered parking and it is $4/hour which is very affordable. I love parking that is paid by the hour because a lot of our trips are less than two hours! If you park in the lot at the end of Mile Road, there is a staircase to get down to the beach.

Go at Low Tide

I think Wells Beach is a great beach if you have a beach house, as the beach itself is beautiful and sandy. I do not have a beach house, though and I most likely never will. The area we checked out, at the end of Mile Road, had some fun tide pools and rocks to climb on. We went at low tide and I’m so glad we did because high tide would have come up to or very close to the wall and staircase leading down to the beach. You need that area to spread out with kids and low tide was a lot of fun! They all had their rain suits on and their feet got even more wet when they ran through the tide pools but I am so glad we weren’t there at high tide. I always check the tide schedule. I even check it on days we aren’t going to the beach, I don’t really know why.

If you can’t find parking, here’s an alternative

Wells Harbor Community Park is so close and has a cute playground! There’s a large parking lot that I heard almost always has parking spots available, even in the summer. We checked out this playground in the winter but the area for parking was large and free. There’s also some ocean views here as well! Check out my post on it below.