Blackwoods Campground — Acadia National Park

Blackwoods: Oct 2023 (Scale 1- bad, 5-Very good (70 yr olds in 17’ trailer). I rate based on desire for at least a moderate wilderness type experience w at least some camp site privacy. NOTE: Sunrise: a short walk that begins across from sites 10 and 11. Don’t miss it! Overall Rating: 3.5 overall Price 2023: $15 w interagency pass Usage during visit: 80%. Site Privacy: Not good Site Spacing: Pretty close. Site surface: Gravel Reservations: Yes Campground Noise: Quiet Road Noise: None Through Traffic in campground: None Electric Hookup: No Sewer Hookup: No Dump Station: Yes Potable Water Available: Spigots are bathrooms Generators: Allowed Bathroom: Flush toilets- clean Showers: No Pull Throughs: Some Cell Service (AT&T): 2 to 3 bars Setting: Wooded with no undergrowth between sites Weather: Great October weather Bugs: Not many mosquitoes Solar: Most sites no. Site B10 had some solar. Host: I did not see any site hosts.
Rig size: Pretty good size , but choose your site carefully if you have a large rig.
Sites: I did not walk through A loop too much, but I suspect the best sites will be the outer loop. Sites I thought were okay, not great: ours, B9 is open to the road, but trailer gives some privacy from adjacent sites. Also, A37 B4 , B 9. There are probably better sites. We packed a lot in during our short time in the park, so I slacked on even a good walk through in our loop. I’ll say that sites in the mid area of Loop A were packed near each other.

Blackwoods Campground is a large campground in Acadia National Park with 306 sites, none of which have electrical hookups.

We stayed in site B004- it was the last site available that could accommodate our 20ft Sprinter Van, so I was worried it would be disappointing but after seeing the other sites in the campground, we decided we would definitely book B004 again!

We like privacy and B004 offered some of the best privacy of any site in the park. We had trees separating us from each of our neighbors, could pull in far enough to get away from the road, and were still a decent distance to the bathroom. The only downside was proximity to the group sites, which were loud at times- but a campground with 306 sites is never going to be as quiet as the forest!

B004 is an accessible site so park officials ask that it only be reserved if no other sites are available or if you have an accessibility need.

The campground itself has no showers, but the bathrooms were clean, if dated. Access to Acadia National Park is unmatched, as we were able to wake up and drive less than five minutes for a beautiful sunrise.

We really enjoyed our visit at Blackwoods campground and would definitely consider staying there again if we were in the area.

Blackwoods Campground is the largest and most popular of the three campgrounds at Acadia National Park. While it is very close and most convenient to the main attractions of the park, this also makes it very crowded. There are approximately 300 campsites at Blackwoods although it shares roughly the same physical landmass as its newer, quieter sister campground Schoodic Woods, which holds only about half that many campsites.

The campground is laid out kind of like a spider web, with very narrow roads separating very narrow campsites. There is ample tree coverage, but little underbrush and the trees are trimmed high into the air, meaning there is virtually no privacy between campsites on your left or right. The narrow roads both in front and behind most sites mean you are also exposed to your neighbors in those directions.

The tent sites are a little more private and densely wooded, but a further walk from the facilities.

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INTERNET: We did have two bars of T-Mobile 4G LTE and 1 usable bar of Verizon 4G LTE as well. Due to the heavy forestation and cramped campsites here, our Starlink was not usable because of too many obstructions.

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MAJOR PROS: Blackwoods is most convenient to all the main attractions at Acadia, including a short, easy, well maintained quarter mile walk down to a spectacular Ocean view from inside the campsite itself. It is also a close drive to the fantastic Park Loop Road for road tourists, and is the closest campsite to the Cadillac Mountain Drive and viewing opportunity, which is the highlight of a Acadia trip for those who like to chase picturesque sunrises (available only by reservation or a 6.7 mile round-trip hike from inside the campground itself).

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While the convenience is nice, this brings out the tourists. This campground is heavily (and I mean heavily) trafficked by families. The campground roads itself are a veritable super highway of children ages 7-13 making endless loops on their bicycles from sun-up to sundown, all day every day. It is noisy. There are crying babies and loud kids playing. Families blasting music past quiet hours and party-goers virtually every night of the week.

It's convenience and popularity means this campground also gets the most novice and disrespectful campers of the three campgrounds. Out of our stay at all three sites, this was the only location where we encountered disrespectful camp neighbors, who not only allowed but actively encouraged their young children to cut through our campsite on the way to the restroom, trash bins, etc. We also had several pieces of fire wood stolen, and someone used our fire pit as a trash receptacle and poured out a large vat of cooking grease on our campsite while we were out for the day.

The bathrooms themselves are the oldest and poorest maintained of the three campgrounds. While we were there in the busiest part of the season (July), pretty much every restroom had about half the toilet stalls out of order. The corner/handicap stalls in each restroom also have a peculiar design where the exterior facing windows are not glossed over or privatized in anyway, meaning anyone of adult height (5'7" or higher, let's say) could look into that stall either intentionally or inadvertently.

Our verdict? While the proximity to all of Acadia's feature attractions is nice, a campground is for camping, and this was the least pleasant of our three experiences there. It's worth the 30-minute to 1-hour drive from the other two campgrounds in Acadia to have a quieter, more mature, better camping experience.

We had a fabulous stay at Blackwoods a few weeks ago. While our site was perhaps one of the nicest, most sites (except the pull-throughs in loop A) were large, private, and surrounded by beautiful scenery (trees, mossy rocks, and so on). We were in loop B (no generators) and found it to be one of the quietest campgrounds we’d stayed at, although the partial closure due to Covid may have contributed to that. We also found that the site drained well after a big rainstorm passed through. Restrooms were clean and modern, and dishwater dump stations were available, though campers were asked to wash dishes at their sites. My only complaints were that there was no hand soap provided in the restrooms — only hand sanitizer — and that there are not many water spigots. No showers on site, but a private facility provides them right across the street from the campground entrance and we found it very satisfactory. We appreciated that we were able to access the Cadillac South Ridge Trail directly from the campground, and although we didn’t take the Acadia shuttle buses, they also stop at the campground. Book early — the reservation was not easy to get!

We stayed here because we were visiting Acadia. Duh. We hardly spent any time at the campsite. But it has everything needed for an enjoyable stay. It has a dump and water fill station at the front of the campground. The sites aren’t very private but it didn’t matter to us here. The bathrooms only have toilets and sinks. I’m not sure if the campground has showers but there is a pay-per-shower business near the campground that seemed decent from the road. We showered in the van and utilized the availability of the dump and fill station. This campground doesn’t allow the dumping of dish water at your campsite. They have a station where you dump the water. It has a screen that catches particles. You clean the screen and throw what it caught in the garbage.

This campground is great for doing stuff early and late at the park. Since it’s May and daylight very early, after sunrise we went through the park again and practically no one was at all major points.

If you collect Passport Stamps for your National Park Passport Book, don’t forget to get your stamp at the check-in station! You have to ask for it but they totally have a stamp. All the Acadia park campgrounds do actually.