ExploringNH
Explorer
I recently had a free weekend and decided to take an impromptu trip up the Maine coast. Recently I've been trying to focus on inexpensive weekend trips and this one can certainly qualify. I'm lucky to live in an area where I have so many things to see and do within a couple hour drive of my house. This trip ventured no more than 2 hours away from my house at any point and even though I've been living in this area for my whole life, I think it was my first time seeing 95% of the places we went.
This trip had no itinerary and no pre-planning. We knew we would head out Saturday morning and return Monday afternoon. That's about it. We packed food for the weekend and hit the road. Our first plan was to head to Ogunquit Maine to Perkins Cove. I knew there were supposed to be some walking trails and that it was supposed to be a pretty small and quaint summer town. The official census lists Ogunquit at something like 1500 residents. In the summer this place packs up like crazy and by winter, I would venture a guess to say that 30 people remain in town. The area is 100% tourist driven and I'm excited to return here to do this same trip in winter. This was peak tourist season so I knew that finding a campground or room would be impossible. We had all day to find a good spot to discreet camp so I wasn't too worried. This area looked like it could work well, so we kept it in mind. We found a spot to park in a $10/3hour lot (OUCH). If we wanted to, we could have parked a bit out of town and walked the 1 mile into town, but we decided it was best to just pay. Being a tourist town, this is pretty much par for the course.
At this point we were only about a half an hour from home but were seeing this area for the first time. New Hampshire has 13 miles of rocky coast and Maine has 228 miles. Quite the difference and a lot of coast to explore.
I knew that there were several sailboat tours heading out of Perkins Cove and I wanted to take one. I love sailing and any chance to get out on the ocean is always a good time. We hooked up with the owner of the Silverlining, a 42' sloop built in 1939. It was originally designed as a racing boat to race across the Atlantic. The owner bought the boat back in 1982 for $5000 and as you can probably imagine, for that price, it needed pretty much every inch of it repaired or replaced. The restoration work was amazing and it was my first time on a boat this old. Prior to this I've only sailed on boats less than 10 years old. Quite the difference. The boat held 6 people plus captain and deck hand.
This trip had no itinerary and no pre-planning. We knew we would head out Saturday morning and return Monday afternoon. That's about it. We packed food for the weekend and hit the road. Our first plan was to head to Ogunquit Maine to Perkins Cove. I knew there were supposed to be some walking trails and that it was supposed to be a pretty small and quaint summer town. The official census lists Ogunquit at something like 1500 residents. In the summer this place packs up like crazy and by winter, I would venture a guess to say that 30 people remain in town. The area is 100% tourist driven and I'm excited to return here to do this same trip in winter. This was peak tourist season so I knew that finding a campground or room would be impossible. We had all day to find a good spot to discreet camp so I wasn't too worried. This area looked like it could work well, so we kept it in mind. We found a spot to park in a $10/3hour lot (OUCH). If we wanted to, we could have parked a bit out of town and walked the 1 mile into town, but we decided it was best to just pay. Being a tourist town, this is pretty much par for the course.
At this point we were only about a half an hour from home but were seeing this area for the first time. New Hampshire has 13 miles of rocky coast and Maine has 228 miles. Quite the difference and a lot of coast to explore.
I knew that there were several sailboat tours heading out of Perkins Cove and I wanted to take one. I love sailing and any chance to get out on the ocean is always a good time. We hooked up with the owner of the Silverlining, a 42' sloop built in 1939. It was originally designed as a racing boat to race across the Atlantic. The owner bought the boat back in 1982 for $5000 and as you can probably imagine, for that price, it needed pretty much every inch of it repaired or replaced. The restoration work was amazing and it was my first time on a boat this old. Prior to this I've only sailed on boats less than 10 years old. Quite the difference. The boat held 6 people plus captain and deck hand.