Help with a family vacation...

To my northeastern friends....My wife and I were looking to do something a little different for our vacation this summer. We thought we'd head north to enjoy some beautiful scenery, great food (lobster, crab, etc.), antique shopping, and some culture. We were looking into coming to Maine in hopes it'd be a little cooler in July.

Can any of you recommend a picturesque place for us to relax and enjoy the great state of Maine for a week or so? We just want to relax and hang out. We'll be leaving our 2 year old with the grandparents for this one.

Thank you all in advance for any advice.

I'd go to the white Mountains in New Hampshire. Hard to beat. I like Maine, however check it out

http://www.visitwhitemountains.com

Bar Harbor & Acadia National Park area would be near the top of my list.



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Anywhere in mid-coast Maine is great. Check out Rockland, Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park, and Boothbay Harbor.

Rockland

Boothbay Harbor

Bar Harbor

Focus on Mount Desert Island.

This. Awesome. Blue nose ferry on Frenchmans bay, bald eagles, whales, Cadillac Mountain, Otter cliffs, Bar harbor, Stop in Freeport for a shopping trip to LL Bean home base. Awesome hiking and biking. But dont get all hot to go swimming, water is like 49 deg in August. Cold water makes for unreal shellfish. Abbots lobster pound for the win. Come on up. And get a puff popover muffin.

Stay away from Cape Cod, its a horror show of vacation hell. Highly overrated.

+1 .
My wife and I took the kids last year.It was one of our favorite vacations as a family.

Don't vacation in York County, unless you want to be swamped with your fellow tourists. Sure, some of the beaches are nice. But, it seems everyone gets to Cape Neddick or Kennebunk and forgets that Route 1 continues northward. The only thing worth stopping and seeing in York County is The Kittery Trading Post. Other than that, keep going north until you get past Portland.

Google Berry Manor in Rockland. Fantastic B+B run by a great couple. Mike and Cheryl will treat you like family. there are some killer sights on the mid-coast. the lighthouse from forrest gump is in Port Clyde. do yourselves a favor and get a reservation at Primo for dinner. Wyeth art museum for the wife. if you go this route Let me know and I will get you some other sights and ideas,

Thank you for the responses. We're going to research your suggestions as we plan over the next couple of months. It difinitely sounds like something we'd enjoy. Also, I've never actually seen a whale, and that sounds awesome. I may plug back into this thread for a fiew details later. I appreciate it.

I'd love to endorse Acadia National Park. We've camped there countless times and enjoyed the surroundings, especially Bar Harbor. However, the crowds there will be really uncomfortably deep especially now as there are cruise ships visiting there pretty regularly, sometimes two at a time. Quite often each ship deposits 4000 passengers that swell into the town not unlike a tsunami. The very best time to visit Bar Harbor anymore is in the Fall, but that doesn't help you. This shot was taken from Cadillac Mountain. That's Bar Harbor flanked by two big cruise ships.



The bottom part of coastal Maine (from Kittery to Freeport) are bumper to bumper tourists from June to Labor Day. However, you can still find a of lot of "quiet" Maine if you look just north from Freeport to Bath and explore the towns of Rockland, Rockport, Camden, all the way to Bath (BIW: Bath Iron Works builds ships. Way cool!) etc. You can also enjoy some outstanding seafood all along the shore there. You can spend a day poking through Freeport ( a million outlets and home to LL Bean open 24 hours a day). There will be crowds there but they melt away as you continue North. There's also an excellent museum of transportation in Owl's Head. (Google it). I would strongly recommend that you research this part of mid-coastal Maine. If you go there over the 4th of July, btw, the city of Rockport has what I'd consider the quintesenntial 4th of July parade. It was really fun. You'll also find the home of Henry Knox there. Very nice.

Our favorite town to spend a few days in and use as a hub was Camden, Me. Here's our seat and view at breakfast one July morning.



There's a little motel there called "The Towne Motel" which is within walking distance of this view, btw.
http://www.camdenmotel.com/

Enjoy your visit to Maine and New England!

Rome (a Connecticut resident who is in LOVE with Maine,spends a lot of time there and will probably retire there!)

This is absolutely true. If you can time your visit with the week after Labor Day, you will have a great experience. We regularly would go that week and find the weather perfect and the town a lot more enjoyable. To mix up the trip a little, we'd camp at the Blackwoods Campground in the park for a few days and then stay in a hotel in town for a night or two so that we could enjoy the active outdoors easily in the park, but then also get cleaned up and enjoy a night or two on the town. There's a free bus system throughout the park, so you can wake up in your tent, go get cleaned up, then walk your bike (or just yourself) over to the bus pickup area in the campground and shuttle your way through the entire park to wherever you wanted to go.

I can't say enough about Acadia. Between Zion NP in Utah and Acadia NP, I have a tough time choosing a favorite place.

Correct. Way to much to enjoy here to waste a bunch of time in York County. I live in York and on the weekends I get as far out of town as possible. Southern Maine is nice in fall & winter, not so much in the summer. Acadia is great, Camden/Rockport area is nice as is Boothbay Harbor. Those places are somewhat touristy in the summer too, but no where near as bad as Freeport and points south. If you're looking for a more secluded get away you could hit the Western mountains (Rangely lake area). Not too far of a drive from there over to some sites in NH as well. You will want to check out KTP for sure if you find yourself in the southern part of of the state. I was just there tonight...their gun selection makes Cabelas look like Walmart.

<>>..

DAmn it, nobody used to go there, now its bunch of tourists. Sorry to here that, tho local biz must rake in the cash. I fear for the environment and water. HOpefully its not mobbed by Japanes tourists with 4 cameras hanging from their necks, dressed in gaudy Bermuda shorts wiht sandals and black socks.

We used to go to hike, bird, whale and eagle watch get tea and popovers at the Joshua House(?) and climb a long Otter Cliffs. B+Bs were the way to go, no Ramada inns I hope.

Shit progress sucks sometimes...some secrets are better kept secrets.

Sir, thank you for the information and the warm invitation. I'll definitely shoot you an IM before we head that direction.

Went to Ellsworth & Acadia area...nice, was there for work trip so didn't see too much. There's a machine gun shoot at Dover Foxcroft that is supposed to be great...check into the dates.

If you want the ocean, I would go with Rockland/Belfast area or up the coast past Mount Desert Island. If not, 4 years ago we came up to the Belgrade Lakes region for a vacation and now we live here.

I like the Belgrade Lakes region. My best friend has a house on "the stream" near Belgrade which goes between Long Lake and Lake Messalongkee where we used to fish for nice size bass. Lately, however, it's soon overgrown every year the fishing has become difficult and it's now full of big muskee.

Rome

That was the Hiram Maxim shoot. I don't think they've done that in at least several years.

Lack of sponsors/funds I've heard, but I don't know for sure.

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