Date visited: 6/13/2026

We started our South Portland adventure here. This is a wonderful park that features the Portland Breakwater Lighthouse, better known as "Bug Light". It's a smaller lighthouse but you can get right up to next it. It's a great photo opportunity with the bay just behind it. The rest of the park is pretty nice too. There's a large open field where people fly kites. Dogs are allowed to be unleashed here as long as they are under voice control, so it's a very popular place for dog owners in the area. Besides the bay, there are great views of Portland from here as well. Mandy and Lexi were able to cool off at the boat launch, but there's no real access to the water here other than that. The parking is free, but the lot was almost filled when we arrived a little after 1PM on a Saturday, so be aware the park can get quite busy. After exploring the park, we headed to the other nearby lighthouse via the Spring Point Shoreway Trail.

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Date visited: 6/13/2026

This is a paved walking path leading from Bug Light Park to Willard Beach. Along the way it passes between a condo complex and a marina, before reaching Southern Maine Community College. The path through the college provides access to two small beach areas that are dog friendly. There is also a pier with great views of the bay. After that, there is access to the jetty that leads out to Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse. The path also provides access to the ruins of an old military fort, Fort Preble, which was active from 1808 to 1950. Beyond the fort, the walking trail ends at the beach. This is a great walk with the dogs, though the route of the path is a little confusing near the marina. We wound up crossing a couple parking lots, but I'm not sure that is the actual route, but none the less, we got to where we were going. The path was the center piece for our four mile walk that also included the parks and beaches along the way. This was a really nice trip with the dogs.

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Date visited: 6/13/2026

This is a cool lighthouse at the end of a breakwater. It was a relatively easy walk on the rocks, though some of the gaps between the rocks required Mandy and Lexi to have to jump over a few of them. The lighthouse dates back to 1897, so it's been around for a while. There are really nice views of Casco Bay from here. This was a fun part of our South Portland adventure that also included the Spring Point Shoreway Trail, Bug Light Park, and Willard Beach.

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Date visited: 6/13/2026

We stumbled across this beach following a path behind Fort Preble near the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse. We had to climb over some rocks, but we eventually hit sand. This part of the beach is actually on Southern Maine Community College's property, and I don't believe it's part of the main beach, located just south of this area. Dogs are only allowed at Willard Beach from 7 to 9AM, and 7 to 9PM during the summer months (May 1st to September 30th), but I'm not sure if that applies to the portion on the campus property or not. At any rate, we didn't see any signs coming indicating dog rules one way or another coming in from the path. We were only here for about fifteen minutes, enough time for the dogs to cool off and relax, before walking back to Bug Light Park, and calling it a day.