3 Best Hotels in The North Woods, Maine

In Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness, the Appalachian Mountain Club's 100,000-plus acres includes three historic sporting-camp retreats, each with a woodsy main lodge with a fireplace, sitting area with games and books, and long tables where meals (included in rates) are served family-style. Each retreat has cabins with wood stoves, a bunkhouse (or two), sauna, and a bathhouse with hot showers. Moose are abundant, and hiking, fly-fishing, canoeing, kayaking, standup paddleboarding, biking (mountain, gravel, and fat-tire), birding, trail running, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing are excellent. Naturalist programs are offered periodically in the summer. In winter, about 80 miles of trails—part of AMC's free, public 130-mile interconnected trail system—are groomed. Many guests ski, snowshoe, or fat-tire bike from lodge to lodge.  

Beautiful gardens, high stone walls, and a hilltop location with marvelous views over Moosehead Lake distinguish this 1891 country estate, one of New England's top inns, with spacious elegant rooms and baths (many have oversize tubs and showers) and a fine dining restaurant. Guest rooms and suites have sitting areas, fine furnishings, antiques, and plush bedding; all but one of the ten accommodations have lake views and a king bed, five have fireplaces, and two have a private porch or patio. Cocktails—and that view, spectacular at sunset—can be enjoyed from the covered porch, swank window-lined lounge, or dining rooms for the fine dining restaurant (prix-fixe spring–fall, incorporating produce and herbs from the gardens, and à la carte in winter).  Awaiting guests on the inn's 80 acres are walking paths, a trout pond, picnic and sitting areas, and a hot tub. Like the restaurant, the full breakfast—served in a porch-like sunroom that affords lake views—features foods from local and Maine farms and producers.

Just 8 miles from Baxter State Park, Mt. Katahdin rises across Millinocket Lake from this 1,400-acre four-season great outdoors resort, with older renovated log cabins—and a few newer ones— scattered beneath tall pines on a grassy nub of land jutting into Millinocket Lake. There are shaded upscale “green” units, mostly spacious two- or three-bedroom cabins, set back from a cove; cabins sleep 4–14, many have propane fireplaces or wood stoves, most have propane grills, and all have TVs and kitchens. River Drivers Restaurant is conveniently located between the two lodging clusters; amenities also include a playground, swimming area, and lakeside benches. About a mile from the cabins, NEOC’s Activity Center is the base for a slew of outfitting and guiding offerings and home to Knife Edge Brewing. Offsite, NEOC has two rustic pond-side “forest cabins” and, a couple miles from Baxter, the seasonal Penobscot Outdoor Center on Pockwockamus Pond. This wooded campground offers tent sites as well as simple canvas tents and wood-frame cabins with cots and bunks. A circular fireplace anchors the open-plan base lodge, where a towering window wall reveals glimpses of the pond through the trees.