Best place to settle down in Maine?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kennybankport, The Bush family summer town.

Are they even there that frequently? I highly doubt it. Most of them resident full time in ritzy towns in Texas, California, and Florida. And if they needed urgent medical care they probably have a helivac on standby. Proles aren't so lucky.

Visited Kennebunkport and I don’t see what the big deal is at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bar Harbor has been a playground for the rich for over a century.

Rockefeller paid for the carriage roads.

Not quite.

Bar Harbor catered to upper class families until the late 1940s or so, when a wildfire burned half the island and destroyed dozens of summer homes. By 70s and 80s it had more of a middle class vibe with some upper middle class thrown in.

Over the past 25 years or so the area has been "rediscovered" by people with means from places like Boston, New York, and DC. Existing motels and "motor inns" were expanded and upgraded, scores of new inns and B&Bs opened, second homes were built, cruises started making BH a port of call, and car traffic increased.

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t change the fact that it is only habitable and populated with stores open for like 12 weeks out of the year. Great for summer, rest of the year very cold and desolate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on 12 years experience with family vacations and many years of sleep away camps for the kids (always tucked away in tiny towns/ if you can even call them that) I’ve learned there are 2 types of people in Maine. You’ve got the summer people and the townies. Once the summer people leave you are left with druggies, the morbidly obese, and the redneck hillbilly types.

Who watches over wealthy people’s seasonal homes in a place like Maine, if the year-round crowds are full of desperate poor and druggies? It seems like homes would all get looted. At least in Florida there are gated communities, security, police and full time residents. Maine sounds terrifying in the off season.

[Anonymous]

Has OP returned to discuss how much time she has spent in Maine and where?

I'm imagining that she has spent a long summer weekend in Ogunquit and another long summer weekend in Boothbay and that is all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t change the fact that it is only habitable and populated with stores open for like 12 weeks out of the year. Great for summer, rest of the year very cold and desolate.

You’re funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on 12 years experience with family vacations and many years of sleep away camps for the kids (always tucked away in tiny towns/ if you can even call them that) I’ve learned there are 2 types of people in Maine. You’ve got the summer people and the townies. Once the summer people leave you are left with druggies, the morbidly obese, and the redneck hillbilly types.

Who watches over wealthy people’s seasonal homes in a place like Maine, if the year-round crowds are full of desperate poor and druggies? It seems like homes would all get looted. At least in Florida there are gated communities, security, police and full time residents. Maine sounds terrifying in the off season.

Not terrifying. Just cold, grey, and depressing.

[Anonymous]

We own a SFH in Ward 3 DC and a house on the water in Boothbay Harbor. I mention the SFH -W3 for context— we’re not on a block with 49 restaurants and a walk score of 96. We’re ok with quiet and low energy vibes

… which is good, because Maine is really, really sedate. The pace is often moribund. Well, outside of outlet shopping and 6 weeks in Bar Harbor or Ogunquit. I like simple things like pie sales and geriatric a capella performances, I genuinely do. And botanical gardens and canoeing. But. Before anyone moves to Maine outside of Portland, you really owe it to yourself to spend six uninterrupted months — in a row — in your chosen town, without bailing October to February.

Also, yeah, health care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t change the fact that it is only habitable and populated with stores open for like 12 weeks out of the year. Great for summer, rest of the year very cold and desolate.

You’re funny.

+1

Stores are open, PP. Grocery stores and hardware stores are open.

The art gallery you love? Sorry it's not open in February.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on 12 years experience with family vacations and many years of sleep away camps for the kids (always tucked away in tiny towns/ if you can even call them that) I’ve learned there are 2 types of people in Maine. You’ve got the summer people and the townies. Once the summer people leave you are left with druggies, the morbidly obese, and the redneck hillbilly types.

Who watches over wealthy people’s seasonal homes in a place like Maine, if the year-round crowds are full of desperate poor and druggies? It seems like homes would all get looted. At least in Florida there are gated communities, security, police and full time residents. Maine sounds terrifying in the off season.

You hire a person to check on it every week. It’s a pain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t change the fact that it is only habitable and populated with stores open for like 12 weeks out of the year. Great for summer, rest of the year very cold and desolate.

You’re funny.

Well I lived there and that’s what it is like in the off season. More than half the businesses only exist in the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We own a SFH in Ward 3 DC and a house on the water in Boothbay Harbor. I mention the SFH -W3 for context— we’re not on a block with 49 restaurants and a walk score of 96. We’re ok with quiet and low energy vibes

… which is good, because Maine is really, really sedate. The pace is often moribund. Well, outside of outlet shopping and 6 weeks in Bar Harbor or Ogunquit. I like simple things like pie sales and geriatric a capella performances, I genuinely do. And botanical gardens and canoeing. But. Before anyone moves to Maine outside of Portland, you really owe it to yourself to spend six uninterrupted months — in a row — in your chosen town, without bailing October to February.

Also, yeah, health care.

This exactly. Also get read to see four colors: black, white, forest green, and the blue sky, (plus the teal ocean if you’re near it) for eight months a year.

[Anonymous]

You can tell most of the posts here are being written by people who have not, in fact, lived through a winter in Maine.

I lived there on the downeast coast and in the Orono/Bangor area, and one summer in Portland - but have relatives there I frequently visited, as well as relatives in the Augusta/Hallowell area.

95% of Maine is open year round, just a few drive ins and ice cream stands and campgrounds are closed in winter. But yes, as with any northern latitude state the winters are long and dark.

There is plenty to do in Maine if you live in or near a city, but as with anywhere else in America, when you get rural you get beans and franks dinners at the church and hunter’s breakfasts at the lodge and an ice fishing derby and maybe contra dancing at the grange hall once a month. People drink a lot and make a lot of crafts in winter - the stuff the people from away love to buy at summer craft fairs or in the quirky shops. In Maine we also make thousands of wreaths in winter.

Maine is a really nice place for people with a country mouse in them.

[Anonymous]

The health care concern is interesting...we lived outside Portland for a couple of years, and the quality and availability of health care was the best of any place we've lived. Portland gets the cream of the crop of Boston medical schools who enjoy the outdoors in a lower COL area. Getting specialist appointments was easier and the facilities better than any we had in the DC area (outside of JHU).

Anyway for all but about 6 weeks it's great weather with a ton to do. And along the coast not much colder than NYC. People were great too, so much less materialistic than we find DC. Different strokes I suppose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can tell most of the posts here are being written by people who have not, in fact, lived through a winter in Maine.

I lived there on the downeast coast and in the Orono/Bangor area, and one summer in Portland - but have relatives there I frequently visited, as well as relatives in the Augusta/Hallowell area.

95% of Maine is open year round, just a few drive ins and ice cream stands and campgrounds are closed in winter. But yes, as with any northern latitude state the winters are long and dark.

There is plenty to do in Maine if you live in or near a city, but as with anywhere else in America, when you get rural you get beans and franks dinners at the church and hunter’s breakfasts at the lodge and an ice fishing derby and maybe contra dancing at the grange hall once a month. People drink a lot and make a lot of crafts in winter - the stuff the people from away love to buy at summer craft fairs or in the quirky shops. In Maine we also make thousands of wreaths in winter.

Maine is a really nice place for people with a country mouse in them.

Anonymous wrote:The health care concern is interesting...we lived outside Portland for a couple of years, and the quality and availability of health care was the best of any place we've lived. Portland gets the cream of the crop of Boston medical schools who enjoy the outdoors in a lower COL area. Getting specialist appointments was easier and the facilities better than any we had in the DC area (outside of JHU).

Anyway for all but about 6 weeks it's great weather with a ton to do. And along the coast not much colder than NYC. People were great too, so much less materialistic than we find DC. Different strokes I suppose.

+1

We moved to greater Portland several years ago and have not looked back. Our quality of life has improved tremendously.