Let’s get it right out of the way that Maine’s National Scenic Byways are gorgeous.

But it helps to be more than just a looker to get on the list.

A route might have historic importance. Unlimited recreational opportunities. A slice of local culture unavailable anywhere else.

And if you can bring it all home with a great name, well then the tourists, and the Mainers, will surely come.

“The Bold Coast was a piece of land in Cutler, Maine, that ended up being renamed the Cutler Coast,” said Fred Michaud, Maine Department of Transportation’s scenic byways coordinator, talking about one of Maine’s newly minted strips. “The (name) Bold Coast was laying there on the landscape, waiting to be used.”

He remembers pitching it to planners, trying to dissuade them from going a traditional route.

“I said, ‘You really need to have a new name. ‘Downeast’ is like having a moose on your wall at camp that’s been there for 40 years and needs to be dusted off a little bit,'” he said.

“I convinced them, reluctantly, to use the Bold Coast and it just happened to be one of those things that just resonated. It creates a mystique, it creates a charm. The boldness of the coast is matched by the bold people that live there, because they’re just as rock hard as that coast is.”

You can almost smell the sea salt and see the knobby knuckles hauling up traps from here.

Michaud offered up a quick jog through byway history and the seven unique Maine routes you ought to aim your car and camper toward this summer.

Just make sure you pack the kayaks, fat bikes, sunscreen, hiking boots and French-English dictionary.

Becoming a byway is a long, winding process requiring a lot of support: First there’s a state designation and a management plan that can cost $100,000 to take a deep inventory of the road, what it has to offer and what it needs to make the case for federal designation.

Interpretive signs? Public bathrooms? Both?

“You look also (at) what are your infrastructure needs? What are some of the capital needs? How are you going to put lipstick on this thing?” Michaud said.

It’s hard work, but worth it. Before the Federal Highway Administration defunded the National Scenic Byways program in 2012, Michaud estimates Maine’s three existing national byways and one All-American Road brought in about $43 million in federal funds for assorted projects.

Once here, funds require a 20% state match.

“At Height of Land (part of the Rangeley byway), we virtually moved the highway,” he said.

Rangeley alone brought in more than $7 million, the most of all the byways here.

Becoming one is “a peer-reviewed, vetted process,” Michaud said, and stakes the claim that the road embodies at least one of six “intrinsic values”: scenic, recreational, historic, cultural, archaeological or natural.

Outside of bragging rights and funds, there’s also a central argument for tourism, he said.

Getting on the national byways list says to travelers, in short, “Go here. You won’t be disappointed.”

“People try to use their time wisely, they’ve got a three-day or four-day weekend, we don’t go for the same period of time we use to,” Michaud said. “We want high-impact experiences in a short period of time, memorable experiences. When you look at a national scenic byway, you get the sense that this has been vetted, that somebody has gone through the trouble of looking at this. It does pass peer review and therefore is worth the experience to go there.”

They also spread people around, he said. Without maps and signs highlighting the routes, visitors might hug the coast or crowd the most popular parks, not realizing there’s more to explore and new favorites to find.

The big byway news last month: The U.S. Department of Transportation approved 15 new All-American Roads and 34 new National Scenic Byways nationwide for the first time since 2009, three of them in Maine.

“This was a one-chance opportunity that I don’t know if it will open up again,” Michaud said.

It’s hard to say what the future holds, funding-wise: The program’s been newly allocated $16 million, less than half the amount it used to receive, he said, but has a “good champion” in Maine U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a ranking member of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee who co-authored a bill reopening the byway nomination process.

So what road glory awaits? Let’s start with the newcomers.