Distantly within the orbit of the Greater Boston area, Kennebunkport maintains a personality all its own. Just a quick stroll around the town’s bustling commercial center, Dock Square, confirms you’re not in just any old ordinary Maine coastal berg. Shoppers range from all-American, shorts-and-knit-shirt types to North African families attired in burnooses.

Chicks Marina welcomes transients on the Kennebunkport side of the river.

Indeed, Kennebunkport’s international notoriety dates from the late 1980s, when then-President George Bush, Sr. spent his summers at the family’s seaside estate not far from downtown. Photos of “H.W.” fishing for striped bass and bluefish just outside the mouth of the Kennebunk River were beamed worldwide—especially when the media made the President’s poor angling luck the object of ongoing ridicule.

Although the fishing can actually be quite good at times, most visitors to the Kennebunkport area come for the extensive shopping, dining and all-around Maine coastal experience. For a town of only 3,500 year-round residents, the array of diversions is truly remarkable, hence the summer population of nearly four times the official census. Curiously, the original attraction at both Kennebunkport, on the east side of the river, and the separate town of Kennebunk, on the west side, were the local beaches. They still are. In fact, if you happen to be in the area for the July Fourth fireworks, the long, white-sand beaches—most of them west of the river mouth—are the best spot for catching the impressive show. These same beaches, incidentally, also attract a cadre of hardcore surfers year-round.

Back in town, though, Dock Square is where most of the crowds congregate. The shopping tends to be upscale, with only a smattering of “T-shirt” shops that seem to dominate many other Maine ports. Exotic and fashionable apparel boutiques battle it out with numerous jewelry and antiques shops for prime locations in the square. But if you see a long line of people queued up near the bridge, there’s little doubt where it leads.

The current Colony Hotel was designed by John Calvin Stevens and opened in 1914 as The Breakwater Court.

The tiny take-out place known as The Clam Shack has been operating near the Taintown Bridge over the Kennebunk River since the 1960s, possibly longer. Even before President Bush made it internationally famous for the luscious fried clams on which he doted, this open-air eatery attracted big crowds eager to consume all of its seafood offerings—especially the lobster rolls. Most grab their orders and sit on nearby wooden benches or lobster crates, watching the crowds and traffic go back and forth across the busy bridge, which is unofficially named “Taintown” because residents of the ’Port side of the river like to tease their cross-river brethren by alleging, “It t’ain’t really the town!”

In truth, there is much to be seen, appreciated, and consumed on the Kennebunk side of the river. Indeed, one of Maine’s oldest craft brewers, the Shipyard Brewing Company, got its start here in 1992, about a block west of the bridge where you’ll find Federal Jack’s Brew Pub—an offshoot of the original brewery. Known locally as just plain “Jack’s,” it occupies the site of one of numerous shipyards that were the commercial reason for settling the Kennebunk area in the 18th century. Like many early shipyard towns in Maine, successful settlement depended on a long, watery highway to forests that provided the lumber from which 150-foot barques, brigs, and schooners were built. The Kennebunk River filled that bill nicely, running some four to five miles through somnolent salt marsh to the interior woodlands.

Today, that inland waterway makes for a delightful and scenic kayak or dinghy trip. Even better, the river stays nicely dredged to about six feet of depth in the main channel. Its high priority among national waterways makes it easy to reach any of the marinas that squeeze into the available space along the estuary’s edges. Obviously, it’s wise to plan well ahead of time, especially in summer, to be assured of a slip or mooring. Of course, you can also visit by car—but that’s not nearly as fun!