We’re considering a trip to Maine this summer. End of July or mid August. We’ve been to Bar Harbor and loved our time there but we’re thinking of branching out to see a different area. Does anyone have input on Winter Harbor? We would like to visit Bar Harbor one day but the rest of the week we would stay near Winter Harbor. We’ll be traveling with a 9 yo and 11 yo plus grandma so mostly light exploring. Easy walks, playing on the beach, splashing in the water. Tips / tricks - favorite spots, restaurants nearby? Thank you!

I assume you know that Bar Harbor and Winter Harbor are night and day. With that in mind, we have lived in remote, as well as busy, areas of the Maine coast and have enjoyed both. I will date myself, but I remember going out to Grindstone Neck, where the fancy "summer cottages" are and recall looking at one for $49,900. The ritzy "neck" just can't compete with those who want to be part of the Mt. Desert Island summer social society. It is a fishing village and a seasonal community with a very short season. And, very few tourists find their way there. My memories are largely of Schoodic Point, a spectacular and very quiet stretch of Acadia National Park, far from the part, across the bay, that 95% of visitors go to.

I recall a massive 20-room oceanfront mansion there was selling for about $10M not many years ago, had been owned by an succession of illustrative owners and sold a few years ago for a measly $1M. I also remember going to Schoodic Point with only a sweater around New Year, but I remember that because it was so unusual. Used to be some kind of Naval communication system and base there, but I believe they turned that info affordable housing. I also believe there is a museum with history of the area there in Rockefeller Hall, a building John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated to the park for navy personnel.

But, like a lot of the beautiful Maine coast, there are still local benefactors. And, this is what has kept the few local businesses that are still in Winter Harbor surviving. The late Fitz Hugh Dixon, of Grindstone Neck, owned all the Philadelphia sports teams (Eagles, Phillies, Flyers). Roxanne Quimby got her hundreds of millions by selling Burts Bees. The two of them kept some of the local businesses going in recent times: the old Gerrish building and its soda fountain; the La Domaine restaurant in nearby Hancock as the fine dining restaurant, and another restaurant that Quimby has had several operators and a couple names in its short life. Its current name seems to be Salt Box. Quimby usually finds pretty good talent to lease or manage her restaurant.

I have digressed, but I am trying to give you a flavor for a place we used to spend some time in when we lived on Mt. Desert Island. I recall driving a back road in 1989 on the way to Hancock Point and saw some large tractor trailer trucks (ones that killed pets) and then a movie location out in no where. It was the filming of Stephen King's Pet Sematary. We always liked driving to Sorrento. Depending on where you are staying, you should have easy walks, playing on the beach (probably rocks) and splashing the water. Be watchful of ticks, they are a growing problem along the Maine coast.