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.