I'll tell you a little secret....coastal towns on Cape Cod and Maine experience a wonderful lull during the week before Labor Day. Families are getting ready for school to begin and some elementary and secondary schools start up even earlier. So the Sunday-Thursday before Labor Day is a great time to see those coastal towns. Of course, the last hurrah of summer takes place on Labor Day weekend and traffic picks up considerable on Thursday night. We love Acadia and Bar Harbor but that's way too far to go from NYC for a couple of days.

Thanks yellowbyrd. Ok, I'm think I'm going to listen to the masses and try to find something furthur down south. I think I'll look around the Camden area for a taste of real Maine.

corwin, I love all of your suggestions, but they're a bit out my price rage. We were trying to keep it to $120ish a night. But I'm going to hang on to this and as soon as the budget loosens....

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

(Thank you all for posting...isn't it strange how much we end up revealing out ourselves?! I feel like you all basically know my life story by now!)

my pleasure to weigh in again eliza26. these are tough decisions. i like dfrostnh's ideas, and also ggreen's, tivertonhouse's, and zootsi's. with concern that august will be fairly booked up by now labor day weekend may be your only option by the time you decide! book accomodations quickly if it's august. i read blink too, so i'll try to "blink" my way thru this to see what bubbles up.

here goes.... to me, downeast can be found in a lobster "shack" on the craggy shoreline as well as in the exquisite drive on route 1 from brunswick thru camden and belfast to bucksport. after that, the coast raggedly fingers down east and route 1 is more inland, so you have to actually choose a finger of land and drive downeast to see coastline. while stonington is great, i think i'd choose monehegan island with bikes, vinalhaven or isle au haut if all i had was 3 days. but, if you can forgo long stretches of white sandy beaches, plus the dining and night life that southern maine, nh, mass have to offer, and prefer a lot of driving over relaxing, here's what you could consider:

1) buy a delorme map book of maine now. you'll enjoy it till you die.
2) hit a lobster shack (byob) at either chauncey creek in kittery point***, two lights in cape elizabeth** (exactly 6 hours from nyc), or drive downeast to the bailey's island lobster pound* from brusnwick.

if chauncey creek isn't maine enough for you, head up to cape elizabeth to the two lights lobster shack. if that does do it for you, then head to monehegan island with your bikes (no cars on island) out of portland. if you still feel like driving hours more.....

3) head north up route 1, deciding in brunswick whether you're going to turn downeast to bailey's lobster pound, or onward around penobscot bay, which is how you'd get to stonington anyway. anyhoo, the bowdoin campus and museum is a nice pit stop.

the view from the car starts getting more downeastie looking somewhere around wiscasset unless you turned off in brunswick.

3) stop in rockport/rockland to see the farnsworth museum collection (farnsworth's live in cape elizabeth on ram island) and walk the jetty at the samoset. take a ferry over to vinalhaven or isle au haut and stay overnight instead of pushing on to deer isle. those places are as downeast as it gets, baby. i love them and dark harbor too.

5) or just push on to stonington, taking in the easterly view of cranberry bogs, blueberry covered hillsides, craggy coast line, islands, and ocean. you can choose castine, which is fine, but it's not the same as deer isle, which has towns named sunset and sunshine, the haystack mountain school of crafts which is NOT TO BE MISSED even if it's closed, walk the boardwalks all over the wooded campus, and also NOT TO BE MISSED is the arboreal fog forest path taking you to barred island next to goose cove. go at low tide. (Barred Island Preserve is off 15A or the Sunset Road until you come to Goose Cove Rd. on the right and follow that for a ways and you will see the small parking lot on the right with the land conservation preserve sign.)

there's a flower nursery in blue hill that i love. and you'll go thru sedgewick which is THE eddie 'wild child' sedgewick family of andy warhol's early years. it is also fun to approach Haystack and Barred Island by kayak.

does this help or hurt? you could just love chauncy creek at kittery point and claim southern maine the spot. also, craggy coast is in full bloom on cape ann, as another person mention. let me know what you decide after you've purchased your delorme.

corwin

corwin,
You're suggestions most definitely help. Also, I have a husband who is putting is foot down on the possibility of driving 10 hours!

I will most definititely buy the map book you suggested. It sounds like a wonderful investment toward future Maine travels. Kittery Point sounds like a great lunch spot, and I'm thinking Camden area to stay.

I found a B&B in Searport that looks wonderful and is well within our price range, but I can't seem to find much about Searport....I saw one comment that the beaches are muddy there, not rocky...I don't know what this means. Here's the B&B (The Wildflower Inn) http://www.wildflowerinnme.com/

We could also stay in Camden at Elms Inn http://www.elmsinn.net/ It's a bit at the upper end of our budget, though, so it would be a stretch....at $139

I haven't been able to find anything in Belfast...

Thank you all for your help. Hope I can repay the favor, if you ever need assistance on an NYC trip or anywhere else I've been!

Belfast/Searsport is about 30 minutes more of driving that you don't want to do...and for 20 year olds pretty laid back/dull. Improving, but still a ways to go to become a hotspot.

If "clean" is your only requirement, take a look at High Tide Inn just north of Camden, an OLD summer home turned into an inn with oceanfront rooms (more expensive) and ocean view motel rooms (set back from the ocean). They should have something to fit your budget.

If your husband insists on something further south...Billowhouse in Ocean Park is right on a huge beach and you can take short drives south to Kennebunk for rocky shores. And don't forget...with gas prices as they are , if you stay south you can afford $130 or $140 a night instead of $120

joesorce,
thanks for your reply. We're not really concerned about Searsport being a hotspot. We have that here in New York. We're looking for some great scenery, lobster and blueberries... And I've read good things about Belfast. I haven't been able to find many Searsport pictures, so any comments would be great...

I've also found a possibility in Wiscassett. Any comments about that area? Too crowded?

(I'm sure you will all be relived when I make my decision! I'll most definitely write a report!)

OK, just found a third possibility in Lincolnville Beach. So, now it breaks down to:

Searsport?
Wiscassett?
Lincolnville?

Searsport would be the cheapest ($80 per night), followed by Wiscassett ($100), finally Lincolnville ($115), but all under budget....

weighing in on your choices....

wiscasset offers nearby access to monhegan island (which i wouldn't miss). you could go on a drive downeast to boothbay harbor, popham beach and reid state park, or just up the road to damariscotta and it's funky art/antique shopping. being just outside bath, you'll find excellent dining, cool yarn shops, museums, and other historical delights in. tenants harbor, friendship, and pemaquid will be fun to nose around. total driving time about 7 hrs, 15 min, not accounting for traffic and your lunch at chauncy creek in kittery point (which i wouldn't miss--be sure to get directions and then use your delorme to follow them, it is easy to make a wrong turn en route there).

lincolnville is situated outside of one of the lovliest towns on the maine coast and sits in the heart of vintage goods/antiques shopping spread out over a wide area from route 1 inland on all the little roads and side roads. from there you'll be able to easily visit not only islesboro, vinalhaven, or isle au haut (quintessential downeast summer spots for natives), but also rockland and rockport for farnsworth musuem, owl's head museum, as well as the camden scene (hills/restaurants/shopping/outdoor cafe/seafaring category).

i have hung out multiple times, but never stayed overnight, in linconville or wiscasset, only in nearby harbors sleeping on a boat while sailing. having sailed penobscot bay every summer of my young adult life, i'd be partial to searsport because it's on that leg of the drive that you get the route 1 view over blueberry and cranberry farms out into to bay of beautiful islands that is a sail boat paradise. from searport, it'll be easy to still day trip to islesboro, vinalhaven, et al, also day trip to castine or even back down to camden for civilization. in searsport, you can walk the rocky coast, the old cemetaries, and go inland to pick wildflowers, and find the ponds to skinny dip in. and most certainly you could day trip by driving downeast to deer isle......but your'e at over 8 hours of driving!

in any location, i can't encourage you enought to take bikes, and get out onto the water any way you can. ideally, load bikes onto a ferry to any island to spend the day tucking them into the woods on the side of the road so you can explore a piece of coastline you wouldn't normally have found otherwise. to me, that is what i think will bring you the serenity that downeast offers it's visitors. your own discovery of your own little piece of coastline that you don't think anyone else has really walked before you.

when did you say you'd be traveling? august is buggy. eveings are chilly enough sometimes for a fire. have you found a place with a fireplace? in case of extreme fog, that would be your best bet.

corwin

did you try this website? (i just googled penobscot bay sites).

http://www.mainebridges.com/lodging.html

my delorme is so crumpled on the penobscot bay pages that i need a new one, which will be my third.

on maine's 95 north, as you are leaving yarmouth and entering freeport, an excellent pitstop is the delorme map store because they have "eartha" which can be viewed in all her glory from the highway. a picture of eartha is here. http://www.delorme.com/about/eartha.aspx

corwin

We traveled off-season in Sept so didn't need a reservation...by the time we got up past Searsport we turned around and went back to Glenmoor (great place, but over your budget in summer) and Lincolnville Beach. Just seemed much more inviting to us. Belfast is a residential town, with summer tourism as a business. Rite Aids, chain restaurants etc. Searsport has a bit more downeast charm I guess, but for $80, make sure you're getting something near/on the ocean because I barely remember seeing the ocean when we drove through Searsport. Lincolnville anything you get will be a short walk to the sea, even if it's across the highway.

check out this website for beach action in southern maine

http://www.maine.info/beach-southernmainecoast.html

and this one may be even better!

http://www.mainecoastdata.org/public/

for some reason, this post never shows up when i search threads with my screen name. can't figure out why!!!

corwin

Thank you all for your gracious help. I finally made my decision! (Yes, I can hear the sighs of relief that you don't have to deal with this anymore!)

I made a reservation at the Spouter Inn in Lincolnville. The front page photo just sold me. The inn keepers are from Philadelphia, and they've apparently made the drive many times, so they estimated it should take 6-7 hours (We'll be traveling during the week, and missing rush hour!).
http://www.spouterinn.com/

We're planning on stopping at Kittery Point for lunch as suggested, and I've checked out Chow Maine from the library to get myself ready to eat!

Corwin, Thank you for all of your help. Today, I ordered the Delorme map. They've just come out with a new addition.

Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions and advice. I'll be sure to post my trip report.

the inn looks lovely!
one thought, chauncy creek on kittery point is byob, as are most lobster pounds. must get there on the early side if it ends up being dinner instead of lunch. parking fills up rapidly. attendant informs you as you approach. lunch, however, should be no problem.
can't wait to hear a trip report about your inn. have fun!
corwin

Eliza, that looks like a great place. We just got back from a week in Maine, mostly the Wiscasset area but did a "day trip" to the Cellar Door Winery in Lincolnville and places along Rt 1 as far as Ellsworth. Downtown Camden was very crowded. It's a beautiful area and do NOT miss the view from the top of Mt Battie. Looking forward to your trip report.