One moment
Plan a Bates College trip — graduation weekend, parents weekend, accepted-students day. Where to stay 2 miles from campus, eat, and explore.
If you’re reading this, you probably have someone you love at Bates — a student moving in, a senior graduating, an applicant deciding. Or you’re visiting for the dance festival, a hockey weekend, or one of the public lectures the college has been hosting since 1855. Whatever brought you here, the goal of this guide is simple: help you plan a Bates trip that goes smoothly, from the drive in to the moment you wave goodbye on the Quad.
We operate Saffron Inn in Auburn, Maine, two miles across the Androscoggin from campus. We have hosted Bates families for years — graduations, parents weekends, accepted-students days, the dance festival, even the occasional conference of faculty. Below is everything we wish someone had told us before our first Bates visit.
Bates has a real academic calendar with real peak weekends. Here is when families and visitors actually descend, in roughly the order of how hard hotel rooms get to find:
Graduation weekend (late May). Commencement is the biggest weekend of the year. Hotels in Lewiston-Auburn often book out four to six months in advance, sometimes earlier. If a senior in your life is graduating in May, reserve lodging the moment the date is announced.
Parents and Family Weekend (October). Bates’s family weekend is typically the third or fourth weekend of October. Fall foliage is at peak — central Maine is genuinely one of the best places to see it — and campus runs football, soccer, faculty receptions, and a Saturday festival on the Quad. Book three to four months ahead.
Accepted-Students Day (April). When admitted students visit to decide where to enroll. Single-day events but families often turn it into a weekend. Less crowded than graduation but still worth booking a month or two early.
Bates Dance Festival (mid-July through early August). Two-plus weeks of nationally-known choreographers, public performances, and master classes. Brings dance professionals from across the country. Hotel demand spikes during opening and closing weekends.
There is also baseline campus activity: hockey weekends, theatre productions, the occasional alumni event. Most weeks during the school year are quiet enough that you can book a room a week ahead and still get a good rate.
Bates is at 2 Andrews Road, Lewiston, Maine. The campus sits in the heart of Lewiston, the older twin city across the Androscoggin River from Auburn. There are not many hotel options inside Lewiston itself — most lodging is concentrated on the Auburn side, a short drive over the bridge.
Saffron Inn — 170 Center Street, Auburn. Two miles from campus, about a seven-minute drive. Six room layouts — King, Two Double, or Two Queens, on the ground floor or with a private balcony. Free Wi-Fi, 55-inch TVs with premium channels, microwave and mini-fridge in every room. Twenty-four-hour front desk — useful when you are dropping a senior at a 6 AM bus to nationals or picking up a parent flying in to Portland Jetport for a midnight arrival. Rates start at $89/night.
Other lodging in the L/A area. A handful of national-chain motels and inns line Court Street and Washington Street on the Auburn side. Quality varies. We are biased, but we’d say the gap between independent operators who walk every floor and chain properties on a remote-management contract shows up most when something needs fixing — a key card, a thermostat, a spill on the carpet at midnight.
Driving distance matters more than you’d expect. Bates is a walkable campus, but the city around it is built for cars. If you are visiting for a weekend and have multiple events spread across Friday afternoon and Sunday morning, you will be driving back and forth between hotel, campus, dinner, and the riverwalk repeatedly. Two miles is two miles, but two miles in central Maine traffic is five to seven minutes — comfortable.
If you are flying in to Portland International Jetport (PWM), the drive to Bates is about 35 miles and takes 45 minutes via I-95 north. From Boston Logan, it is roughly 140 miles and 2.5 hours. From Bangor, about 80 miles and 90 minutes.
Bates’s campus is compact — you can walk from one end of the Quad to the other in five minutes. Visitor parking is available at the Visitor Center on Andrews Road. During major weekends (graduation, parents weekend), the college sets up overflow parking and shuttle buses from designated lots; check the Bates events page before you arrive for the latest map.
The Lewiston-Auburn region has limited public transit — Citylink buses cover the basics within the twin cities but service is hourly and ends in early evening. Plan on having a car for any visit longer than a single afternoon.
For walking the campus itself, comfortable shoes matter. Bates is on a slight rise above downtown Lewiston, and you will be on your feet for hours, especially during a parents weekend or accepted-students day with multiple back-to-back events.
Lewiston-Auburn has a quietly excellent food scene anchored by Franco-American heritage and a growing crop of independent restaurants and breweries. A short list of favorites:
Mac’s Grill (Auburn). A Maine steakhouse staple — dependable, warm, the kind of place you take a parent who has been driving for six hours. About a five-minute drive from Saffron Inn, ten minutes from Bates.
Gritty McDuff’s Brew Pub (Auburn). Big menu, local pours, always a game on. Good for a casual post-graduation lunch with a crowd of relatives.
Baxter Brewing Co. (Lewiston). One of Maine’s best-regarded breweries. Taproom inside the old Bates Mill complex — a piece of the city’s industrial history, repurposed into a working brewhouse. Walking distance from campus.
Side by Each Brewing Co. (Lewiston). Smaller, quieter, where the locals go on a weeknight. Limited food but rotating taps and friendly bartenders.
Grant’s Bakery (Lewiston). Franco-American classics — meat pies (tourtière), savory whoopie pies, and the kind of bread you take back to the hotel and finish in one sitting. If you only do one local stop on a Bates visit, make it Grant’s.
Mother India (Auburn). When you have been eating dining-hall food for a semester and need something with cumin in it.
Forage Market (Lewiston). Wood-fired bagels and excellent coffee. Two blocks from campus. The Bates faculty hangout.
For breakfast on a graduation morning when everyone needs to eat fast and the dining hall is closed, the Auburn-side diners along Center Street and Washington Street are reliable.
A Bates visit is rarely just about Bates. Once you have seen the dorm, eaten the dining-hall lunch, and watched the senior thesis presentation, you have time to spare. Things worth doing in the L/A area:
Androscoggin Riverwalk. A mile-long paved path along the river, connecting Festival Plaza on the Auburn side to downtown Lewiston via the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge. The Shoe Fountain at Festival Plaza is a direct tribute to Auburn’s shoe-making past — water runs through bronze laces, kids climb it. About 1.5 miles from Saffron Inn.
Museum L/A. Two miles from the inn, three blocks from Bates. Inside the old Bates Mill complex on the Lewiston side. The anchor exhibit, The Industrial Heart, walks through the shoe and textile industries that built these twin cities. Plan ninety minutes — it is genuinely an excellent small museum.
Lost Valley Ski Area. If you are visiting in winter, Lost Valley is three and a half miles from Saffron Inn and runs Maine’s official Learn to Ski & Snowboard program. In summer, the same trails turn into mountain biking and there is a brewpub at the base lodge.
Lake Auburn. Four miles from the inn. Fishing (salmon, bass, brook trout), kayaking in summer, a quiet drive in fall.
Mount Apatite Park. 325-acre park, two and a half miles from the inn. One of New England’s biggest rockhounding sites — tourmaline, quartz, apatite crystals. Bring a small hammer if your kid is into geology.
Gendron Franco Center (Lewiston). The single venue that anchors L/A’s Franco-American heritage. Theatre, concerts, French-language film, and choirs still singing in Quebec-rooted French. If your visit overlaps with a performance, see one here.
A few things we have learned hosting Bates families:
Book lodging the moment dates are confirmed. Especially for graduation. We have turned away more graduation-weekend callers than we like to admit.
Pack for Maine weather, even in May. May graduations have ranged from 80 degrees and humid to 45 degrees and pouring rain. Bring layers and an umbrella.
Build in driving buffer. Lewiston-Auburn traffic is light by national standards but the bridges between the two cities can get congested during major weekends. Plan twenty minutes to anywhere you need to be.
Confirm with the front desk. If you have a late arrival, an early checkout, a special request — call ahead. We are open 24 hours and a person picks up. Most of the small things people forget to mention at booking are easy to handle if you tell us before you arrive.
Take a riverwalk. Even if you have ninety minutes between events, walk the Androscoggin Riverwalk. It is the prettiest stretch in the L/A area and most visitors miss it.
Bates graduation is one of the events of the year in Lewiston-Auburn. The whole region rallies — restaurants extend hours, hotels fill, the city feels celebratory. If your senior is graduating, three things worth knowing in advance:
First, book lodging when the date is announced. We are not exaggerating about hotel availability.
Second, plan dinners ahead. Saturday night before commencement is the busiest restaurant night of the year. Reservations at Mac’s, Gritty’s, and the better Lewiston spots fill up two months out. If you have a large family party, call ahead.
Third, factor in the senior’s schedule. Graduation weekend at Bates is a marathon for graduating students — senior banquets, senior dinners, last-night parties, ceremony rehearsals, the actual commencement, family lunches. Be flexible. The weekend belongs to them.
We are seven minutes from Bates by car, fifteen minutes from Portland Jetport in good traffic, and have a person at the front desk twenty-four hours a day. Direct bookings get our best rate, every time.
Visit our rooms page to see our three layouts, or call the front desk at (207) 784-1331 with any questions about your visit. We hope to see you at 170 Center Street.
Direct booking gets our best rate, every time. Or call the front desk at +1 (207) 784-1331 — open 24 hours.