Traveling to Maine

If you want easy access to beaches and shopping, traditional tourest area, Southern Maine is the place, we spend time at Wells, shopping in Ports mouth NH and Portland, Old Port area. If you want fantastic views, scenery, nice but hard to reach beaches, and hiking, Acadia is the place. Lobsters are easy to find in Maine.

I have vacationed on the Maine coast for years. I no longer need to shop, or do the commercial centers. Acadia is a must if you haven't seen it. Be sure to do some hiking on the carriage trails to really see the beauty of the area. I now bypass Bar Harbor and go further north. There is a new campground at Schoodic, the lesser known part of Acadia that is really lovely. Ocean Woods campground is also supposed to reopen this year, which was my all-time favorite true camping place to go. I head further north to Cobscook Bay state park now. Nothing around but beautiful coastline, some hiking. No hookups there but some lovely sites on the bay. If you want to relax with a campfire and watch the tide go in and out, it can't be beat. Another new campground I haven't tried is Reach Knolls, again in a quiet area with little fishing harbors nearby, lots of lobster and seafood.

fireman41 wrote:
Also in the Bar Harbor area you have to try the blue berry ice cream, and anything made from The Atlantic Brewing Company.

If you enjoy good BBQ be sure to visit Mainely Meat BBQ which is at the site of the Brewery! Mainely Meat

Also in the Bar Harbor area you have to try the blue berry ice cream, and anything made from The Atlantic Brewing Company.

We found one of best and least expensive ways to enjoy lobster just about anywhere in Maine, was to get the lobsters at one of the major grocery stores (Hannaford or Shaws for instance) and they will cook it for you while you get your other groceries. Take it back to the RV and add your own fixins. Most restaurants will serve you the 1.25 pound size. My wife usually liked to order the 2 pound ones at the store and we still spent less than half of what the restaurants charged for 1.25 pound ones. Now occasionally you want the experience of eating at a restaurant but if you are into lobsters, like my wife, we found the grocery stores allowed her to eat them as often as she wanted without destroying the budget. :B

While Maine has a tremendous coast that I have yet to fully explore, I was able to spend a week at Bar Harbor Oceanfront KOA on MT Desert island. First they have a lobster guy cooking lobstah dinners right in the CG. Second before you get to the CG when approaching the causeway over to the CG is Trents Lobster Pound. So before you set up, you need to fill your selves with a 2 pounder steamed in seas water over a wood fire.......Once in KOA you need not dirve anywhere if you dont want to. They have a FREE shuttle that loops through all the CG's and hotels and brings you into town. We did drive over Acadia NP and road our bikes up to the lodge for another fine meal.

You wont go wrong with this as a starter, finisher or just plain old stay there and have fun.

PS there are also multiple Lobster pounds on the island so your certain to have scales when you leave.

We aren't fans of the Bar Harbor area. We enjoy Boothbay Harbor area. From this area you can get to the Kittery area in a day and go to Bar Harbor in a day and all in between. As far as lobster, no matter where you are in Maine, you will find great places for that. Some are better than others but all are very good.

As far as shopping, depends on what you mean. Boothbay area has the usual trinket stores, upscale womens clothing in Boothbay Harbor and alot of pottery shops in Boothbay. If you are talking about the usual mall type of shops, Portland is about an hour away. Freeport iis about 30 mintues away, with alot of shops. Hope this helps.

Bar harbor is a long ways up in Maine the southern part of Maine is very nice

We are heading to Belfast at the end of June this year. I have reservations at the Moorings RV Resort right on the ocean. There are plenty of places to explore that are more touristy (Camden, Bar Harbor), but we like the small town feel of Belfast.

We do Southern Maine. We stay in the Sanford area which is about 30 minutes from Ocean. Close to Kitterey Outlets for school clothes and everything you can think of. An hour ?? from L. L. Bean. Your choice of sandy beaches range from crowded to almost empty. More than enough sea food places to pick from.