Recompence Shore Campground

Overall Rating (1 to 10) : 8
Location: Freeport, Maine

We stayed at Recompence Shore campground this Labor Day weekend. The campground is close to downtown Freeport, and within walking distance to Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park. There is a farm cooperative on the campground, which is open to the public. The barn is always open, and you can walk right in and feed the sheep, goats, and chickens. They even leave instructions in case you want to help out a little while you're visiting, though you don't have to.

We couldn't have asked for better weather all three days of our trip. Because of the good weather, the campground was nearly full. I had made a reservation for one of the last sites available, according to the main office. Our site was "water view", meaning it was on the other side of the road from the waterfront sites. It was only a few steps to the water, accessible by a steep staircase.

I was disappointed when we arrived at our site -- two large trucks from the neighboring campsites were parked on our site, nearly blocking it. They quickly moved the vehicles, so it wasn't a problem. Most of the campground was filled with tents, but we were the only tent in our area, probably because it was the most open and flat area of the campground. All of the sites around us were taken up by larger sized RVs, which is generally a turn-off for me. I went to the office the next morning, but they claimed nothing else was available (which was a little confusing, since we saw many open sites as we walked around). Our RV neighbors were very nice, quiet and polite, so it turned out OK anyway.


Most of the sites at Recompence Shore are private and wooded, located either directly on the waterfront, or adjacent to it. Our site was located in the only open field area of the campground, but it was still pleasant because of the farm feeling. I was hoping to wake up to sheep grazing in the field, but they didn't let them out of the barn while we were there.

Recompence is an expensive campground, compared to what we usually pay. For the price, I expected better facilities than what we got. We only had a pit toilet within walking distance of our site, and it smelled quite badly by the end of the weekend. They have flush toilets and showers by the main office, but they were too far to walk to from our site, and the sink in the women's room was blocked. For over $35/night, I expected much better facilities, and more of them. We have stayed at plenty of $10/night state parks that had cleaner, far superior facilities.

That said, I would still go back. The views of Casco Bay were fantastic, and you could have a ball canoing and kayaking. Wolfe's Neck state park, which is adjacent to the campground, is very nice, with beautiful waterfront hiking trails. And I loved seeing the farm animals wandering around. Plus, if we found we needed camping supplies, L.L.Bean headquarters was right down the road.

Savoy Mountain State Forest

Overall Rating (1 to 10) : 8.5

Location: Florida, Mass.

Savoy Mountain is an idyllic campground, set on a hilltop meadow within the state forest. It used to be an apple orchard -- I picked some apples from the remaining apple trees. It was unfortunately rainy and misty for most of our visit over Columbus Day weekend, but we (John and I, Mike, and his girlfriend Marie) still enjoyed the scenery. There is also a large pond with a swimming area, but it was too chilly for us to enjoy it. I bet it would be nice to paddle around on.

There are lots of hiking trails in the state forest, some of which start at the campground. We hiked out to the Tannery Falls, which were more impressive than I was expecting.

The campsites are all medium or large sized, and well spaced out. The sites on the meadow aren't tremendously private, but are still very pretty and looked fun. We stayed at one of the many wooded sites around the perimeter of the meadow. There are even a few wooded sites that are three-in-one, with views of the woods, the meadow, and the pond.

I really enjoyed the open, pastoral quality of this campground. It was unlike most of the places we camp. There were tons of little birds in the meadow grass -- as you walked by, they would fly up in front of you.

The bathrooms were better than decent, with free hot showers and flush toilets. John in particular liked the dish washing station, complete with hot water and a space to lay everything out.

The campground is fairly off the beaten path, but it's still only 15 minutes to North Adams, where there's a grocery store, restaurants, etc.

Alpine Garden Trail - Mount Washington, NH

I wasn't up to hiking all of Mt. Washington this trip, and the weather wasn't being cooperative, so we decided to drive up to the top and hike around a little bit from there.

The summit was in the clouds when we got there, so we drove back down the auto road a few minutes to get out from under the clouds. There's a small parking area next to the trail head to access the Alpine Garden.

You have to climb down (and eventually back up) a very steep staircase of boulders to get to the relatively flat Alpine Garden Trail. The trail continues across to a viewpoint overlooking Tuckerman Ravine.