Best Campgrounds in Maine

Phone rings about twice a week, somebody asking where to camp in Maine. I tell em the same thing I'd tell my brother-in-law: it depends on whether you want quiet or you want a lobster roll within walkin distance. Maine'll give you both, but not at the same campground. Anyway.

I spent most of my career out west but I married into a family with a place up near Greenville, and I been runnin trail crews and helpin out at ranger stations in New England summers since I retired off the permit desk. Done a lot of nights in a tent up there. Sadie too — my Border collie's logged more miles on the Appalachian Trail than most thru-hikers, though she'd never brag.

So here's the campgrounds I'd actually send people to. Not the prettiest brochure picks. The ones that hold up after you've been there three or four times and the bloom is off the rose.

Baxter State Park — Roaring Brook and Katahdin Stream

If you only do one trip to Maine in your life, you do Baxter. Percival Baxter handed this place to the state with a list of rules a mile long and thank god he did, because it's still wild in a way that most of New England forgot how to be. No running water at the sites. No electricity. No cell signal. Reservations open in a rolling window months out and the prime weekends go in minutes, so you gotta plan like you mean it — check the Recreation.gov-style timing on the official Baxter site before you go, their system is its own beast and seperate from the federal one.

Roaring Brook is the launching pad for Chimney Pond and the Knife Edge route up Katahdin. Katahdin Stream campground sits at the foot of the Hunt Trail, which is the AT's northern terminus — you'll see thru-hikers with that thousand-yard stare stumblin through. Both fill up. South Branch Pond up in the north end gets less traffic and the swimmin is better, in my opinion. Trout Brook Farm if you want flat ground and nobody around.

Bring a real stove, because open fires are restricted at some sites and the firewood situation is what it is. And bring layers. I've seen frost on the picnic table in August up there, I really have.

Acadia — Blackwoods, Seawall, and the one most people miss

Acadia is the busy one. National park, cruise ships in Bar Harbor, the whole rodeo. But the campgrounds inside the park are still run right and if you book em early through the federal system you can have a real fine time. NPS.gov will get you to the Acadia page, reservation windows shift around so don't take my word on the dates.

Blackwoods is the closer one to Bar Harbor and it gets the buses. Seawall on the quiet side of Mount Desert Island is the one I'd send my own family to — walk-up to the rocks where the ocean's just hammerin away, no gift shop within easy reach. And then theres Schoodic Woods, on the Schoodic Peninsula, which is the part of Acadia that sits on the mainland. Most folks never make it over there. Their loss. Bike paths, ocean views, a fraction of the people. That's where I'd go.

One thing about Acadia — the hiking is genuinely good but it gets crowded in a way the rest of Maine doesn't. Start early. By 9am the Beehive trail looks like a checkout line at the grocery.

Lily Bay State Park — Moosehead Lake

Now we're talkin. Lily Bay is on the east shore of Moosehead, about nine miles up from Greenville, and it's the kind of place where you sit on a rock with a cup of coffee and watch a loon do its business for forty minutes and that counts as a full mornin. Two loops, Rowell Cove and Dunn Point. Both work. Dunn Point has the better boat launch.

Moosehead is a big lake — biggest in Maine, by a stretch — and it can turn on you fast if the wind picks up. If you brought a canoe, hug the shore. I lost a good fishin hat out there in '09 because I thought I knew better. Did not know better.

The state-park reservation site is maine.gov/dacf/parks and it's not bad to use, though they do that thing where the prime weekends sell out the day the window opens. Used to be quieter up there. Internet found it, like everything else.

Cobscook Bay State Park — the one with the tides

Cobscook is way down east near Lubec and Eastport, which is about as far as you can drive in the continental US before you hit Canada. The tides here run something like 24 feet, sometimes more, and watchin the bay drain out in the morning is a strange and beautiful thing. The sites are spaced way out — some of em on their own little spurs lookin right over the water. Best site spacing of any campground I been in on the east coast, and I'll stand by that.

You wont find crowds. You will find blackflies in June and mosquitoes in July, so come prepared or come in September. Bring a good sleeping bag because even in summer the nights down there get cold off the water. Eagles all over the place. Sadie nearly lost her mind the first morning, she's not used to birds the size of small dogs.

Rangeley Lake State Park — western mountains, good water

Out in the western Maine high country, Rangeley sits in a chain of lakes that don't get talked about enough. The state park is on the south shore of Rangeley Lake itself, and the camping is straightforward — clean, treed sites, a beach, a boat launch, the usual. Not fancy. That's the point.

What makes Rangeley worth the drive is what's around it. Saddleback Mountain, the Appalachian Trail crosses through, and Mt. Blue State Park is over near Weld if you want a second base. Some of the prettiest paddling in the state on Mooselookmeguntic Lake nearby. Yeah I had to look up how to spell that, every time.

A few more worth knowin about

Couldn't cover all the good camping spots in Maine without a book, but here's the shortlist I keep in my head for when folks call:

• Sebago Lake State Park (Naples area) — big, busy, family friendly, deep clean lake. Good first-Maine-trip campground for folks with kids.
• Mt. Blue State Park (Weld) — quiet, good hiking on Tumbledown nearby, the kind of place where you can hear yourself think.
• Lamoine State Park (Lamoine, near Ellsworth) — a smart play if Acadia is full. Right across Frenchman Bay, you can see MDI from the shore.
• Aroostook State Park (Presque Isle) — Maine's oldest state park, way up in The County. Almost nobody there. Quaggy Joe Mountain is a fun half-day hike.
• Bradbury Mountain State Park (Pownal) — close to Portland, small, but a decent overnight if you're easin into a trip.
• Warren Island State Park (off Lincolnville) — boat-in only, so you gotta work for it. Worth the work.
• White Mountain National Forest dispersed camping along the Maine side near Evans Notch — free, primitive, you bring everything in and out. Check with the Forest Service on current rules.

What to know before you book

Couple things people get wrong about Maine camping. First, the season is shorter than you think. A lot of these campgrounds dont open until mid-May and they close down by Columbus Day weekend, sometimes earlier up north. Second, bugs are not a rumor. Blackflies in late May through June will reorganize your priorities. Pack a head net. I'm not kidding.

Third, bears. Maine has a healthy black bear population and you treat your food the same way you would in Yellowstone — locked in a hard-sided vehicle or hung properly, never in the tent. Most Maine bears are shy and you'll never see one, but the ones that learned campgrounds equal sandwiches are the ones that get put down, and that's on us, not them. Don't be the reason.

Fourth, the reservation windows for the popular places — Baxter especially, Acadia second — are competitive in a way that surprises first-timers. Mark the date the system opens, set an alarm, and have your site picks ready. For Maine state parks, the official site is where the action is. If you've got flexibility in your dates, midweek is gold. Tuesday night at Lily Bay is a different planet than Saturday night.

If you're new to tent camping or you're upgrading from gear thats been in the garage since the Reagan years, take a look at our tent picks and the general gear page before you commit. A leaky fly will ruin a good trip faster than anything except a bad attitude. You can also poke around our parks pages and the trails list if you want to build out a real itinerary. For day-hike ideas alongside any of these basecamps, AllTrails Maine isn't a bad starting point, though I'd cross-check against the local ranger station before I trusted a stranger's trip report.

Honest take

If it was me and my wife and Sadie, packin the truck this weekend, I'd point it at Cobscook Bay for the quiet, or Lily Bay if I wanted Moosehead in my face. If I had grandkids in tow I'd do Sebago and let em swim themselves stupid. Baxter is the trip-of-a-lifetime one but it asks somethin of you — plan early, pack right, respect the rules. Maine rewards folks who show up ready. It does not reward improvising. And thats all I got.