Features

Best Places to Camp

Twenty-five of our favorite spots for kindling a fire, rolling out a sleeping bag, and unwinding in the Maine outdoors. (And yes, for social distancing.)

By The Down East Staff

Eat Outside!

Dining alfresco is a rite of summer, and this year, it’s imperative. These 33 patios, decks, lobster shacks, and picnic tables serve up a just-right mix of knockout food and delicious scenery.

By Will Grunewald

Old Home Place

A rootless descendant of some of Maine’s earliest settlers takes to the tidal waters of the midcoast, looking to return to a place he’s never been.

By David Howard

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Departments

North by East

A Francophone Augustan brings a ball game from France, and a Khmer-speaking Wisconsinite helms Maine’s pandemic response. Plus, an acclaimed, Veazie-based writer verses himself in Washington mumbo jumbo, while a DC muckety-muck checks in on medical-swab production in Maine Dispatches.

Food and Drink

Upshots of the pandemic: takeout thrives in Tenants Harbor, to-go cocktails (and other good ideas), and farm stands sprout fresh demand.

Good Things from Maine

A baker’s dozen of gear, gadgets, and games — from canoe paddles to reflector ovens to buoy bats — for cooking up a fun summer in the Maine outdoors.

Maine Homes

A family turns a three-seasons camp on the Pemaquid Peninsula into a four-seasons home, and a Bar Harbor gardener makes a perfect mess of her vegetable patch.

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Where in Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, reader feedback, responses to May’s Where in Maine, and more.

Columns

Timelines: Percival Baxter’s Mountain Epiphany, My Maine: The Deep Heart’s Core, Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Down East senior editor Virginia Wright, on Acadia National Park.

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On the cover: Cathedral Pines Campground, in Eustis, by Mark Fleming.