FIELD NOTES #10
NEW HARBOR,
MAINE
Welcome to the Mid-Coast Maine Finger Peninsulas
Dates
Aug 25 – Aug 30, 2026
Miles to camp
40
(1,757mi travelled so far)
Weather
60-75
Sunny
Symptom Score
14
(baseline: 23)
WOuld we return
Yes
How I Felt
During our stay my average score was 14, which means I was really feeling pretty good and the longer we stayed the better the scores were getting.
What We Did
The spent only fives in New Harbor Maine, but we had a great time and I felt pretty good doing it. We decided to leave early in order to go back to New Hampshire and Vermont to test out areas which might have more homes in our price range and better schools for the kids. We plan to return to Mid-Coast Maine to test out our favorite prospect in Maine, Freeport.
In New Harbor we spent a lot of time enjoying the amazing shoreline of the peninsula. We hiked LaVerna Preserve twice. The trails went through a variety of different woods, and some very unique shoreline. We saw osprey nests, ragged shorelines and coastal conifer forests.
However probably the most stunning shoreline we have seen so far belongs to the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. The light house is situated on one of the widest and unique shorelines in Maine, making it one of the most used photographs for Maine lighthouse postcards. The boys had a chance to climb to the top of the tower with Meg. We spent a long time down on the shore, just enjoying the waves coming as the tide rose.
After a day of hiking we went to the Granite Hall Store to get some candy from the old timey general store and then an homemade ice cream cone. The store is close by to the great hikes in the area, making it a great excuse to stop by. The boys really liked being able to pick out a variety of candies to fill their bag.
Our Favorite Moment
Exploring the beautiful shorelines of Pemaquid Point area.
Observations
The Journey Continues
We are visiting 45 campgrounds in 300 days to find a place where our family thrives and my symptoms improve. Follow along as we share what we learn along the way
Graham Simplified
Scorecard
8 / 10
6 / 10
5 / 10
7 / 10
6 / 10
6 / 10
Probably
Overall
6
/ 10
- This campground was one mile from the shore, our previous campsite in Rockport was about 1,500ft from the ocean shore. I felt pretty good at both. Our campsite near Acadia was 2.5 miles from shore and I did not doo well. Its not super scientific, but so far that means our “goldilocks” zone is somewhere under 2.5 miles with good exposure (no mountains, etc). We hope to do more testing on this idea in the future.
- Our campground, and the previous one did not have the rocky conifer coastline we have been searching for, yet we had decent results. This could suggest that we could be ok without that type of ecology. However is something that would be good to test in high pollen seasons.
- We actually decided to cut our trip to this area short for a few reasons. 1) Home prices are out of our budget, so even through we were learning we could live here, we couldn’t afford to. 2) Schools in this area struggle to get the resources they need to provide the services we hope to find for our kids. 3) We wanted to test out New Hampshire and Vermont more and we thought we would never be closer. So we are off to NH and will return to the Maine coast in three weeks to test the Freeport area.
- The boys are really doing great. Gabe isn’t really complaining as much about physical activities, Finn is showing initiative about helping out around the camper and we are seeing a lot of behavior improvements in general.
Next we are headed to:
Lisbon, New Hampshire
Back-tracking to learn more about areas we might be able to afford better homes and school districts.
