Take a fun ride down Route One

Subtitled “A quirky road trip from Maine to Connecticut,” Dan Tobyne’s book Route 1 – New England, isn’t what I would call quirky. I call it lots of fun!

Tobyne is a photographer and writer from South Hamilton, Massachusetts, who had the great idea of traveling the length of Route 1 in New England, taking pictures and writing about the places he visited.

And I have to say, as a travel writer myself, he did discover a lot of my favorite places along the way in Maine. I have traveled a lot of Route One myself from Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida, and it is an adventure for sure.

Tobyne gets it right when he says, “Route one is a living, breathing, manifestation of America. It is as much about the people as it is about the place; as much about the buildings, bridges, and monuments, as it is about the view… It can be dirty and pristine, fast and interminably slow, poor and affluent. It encompasses all walks of life, and it tells our story.”

He tells us a bit of history of Route One which is been a highway for 300 years. Now I did not know that!

I focused a lot of my attention on the sections on Down East and midcoast Maine, and he does include many of my favorite places there. And fortunately, he didn’t get far off of route 1 so he doesn’t disclose a lot of my very favorite places which are uncrowded and unknown to tourists.

So take a ride on Route One with Dan Tobyne. It’s a lot easier ride in the book than in your car!

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.