Best Campgrounds near Aurora, ME

Lamoine State Park is a great option if you want to be close to Acadia but away from the crowds.

There are both tent and rv sites, which are intermingled in the campground. There is a bath house with showers and flush toilets. The toilet area was clean and was maintained on a regular basis. There are multiple vault toilets around the campground.

The sites are in rows, from the top of the campground down to the water. Sites at the top are grassier with more sun, and the sites near the water have more shade. Many sites are not flat and require significant leveling if in an rv. Some sites have more buffer than others, but in general I would not say that there is great privacy between sites.
The sites on the water all have beautiful views. There is no power/sewer/water at any of the sites. There are water faucets around the campground, and a dump station near the entrance.

The park has a day use area and a public boat launch. You could launch a kayak from the park. The day use are is lovely, as is the launch area. The staff at the park were friendly and helpful.

You are about 30 minutes to Acadia, 20 to Ellsworth and 30 to Blue Hill. It is a convenient location that is outside of the crowds. The Lamoine Beach is a 5 minute drive away and is a nice place to walk.

My family of 4 tent camped at Mount Desert Campground in June ‘24. I woke up at 5am to reserve a site months in advance for the ‘24 camping season. Upon late arrival, we grabbed out site details from the office and made our way through the grounds. It’s made of of a few different camping sections with designated shower/restroom houses. They were all clean, nicely spaced throughout the grounds. And you could use any of them. The showers are coin operated for warm water. Bring quarters! You can definitely shower completely with one session of about 5 minutes (I believe). The entire facility is raised with spacing between the floor slats for air circulation and breeze, which I liked. That saying, don’t drop money or jewelry on the floor as it would be difficult to get.

The sites all had a decent amount of privacy and trees between sites. It felt more comfortable and private than expected! D19 was a premium site with water & electricity. It was awesome. Each site has a picnic table & fire ring.

Sites are not made for large RVs. They can fit smaller camper trailers and pop-ups, but that’s about it. It actually adds to the campground ambience as it keeps things quiet and more of an outdoor camping experience!

The BEST part of this campground for our family was Somes Sound and the floating docks. We purchased a crab bucket with net from the coffee shop one morning for around $10-12. It was well worth it as my kids crab gigged for HOURS off the docks every day! We carefully swam to the small rock island next to the dock and collected sea snails. The water was cold but felt great when hot. Watch out for jelly fish!! We took our chances by swimming around them.

We rented double kayaks from the front office for 2 hours and kayaked Somes Sound - it was beautiful water & amazing exploring! A bit more difficult with the ocean currents vs lake kayaking, so keep that in mind with kids. Wear life vests!

If you want a waterfront campsite - good luck! They let the families book them year over year so it’s hard to get an opening to reserve those sites. But it doesn’t really matter as we didn’t spend time at our site a lot anyway between exploring the NP and being down at the docks.

We loved our stay at the blueberry fields!   This is private land that the owner rents to campers.  We stayed in campsite 2, where the land is open and flat, and there was plenty of room for our rv.  There are 4 total campsites, and each  offers a slightly different view and sense of privacy.  The owner met us when we arrived.  Dogs are allowed.  It is dry camping, with no hookups, and generators are not allowed.   The owner had a picnic table set up with flower boxes in it, and there was a nice fire ring. They will sell you wood if you need it.  There was one other camper at site 1, and we could also see the owners house, but both were far enough away that we had a great sense of privacy. There was a shared porta potty available for use for all of the campsites.  The land was quiet and peaceful - it is acres of blueberry fields, which create a special sense of being in nature. The site we were at had a nice tree, which framed the site. The owner was very responsive to questions we had, and responded quickly.   The area was very quiet - at night we only heard the crickets and the wind.

You are close to Castine, Ellsworth, Blue Hill, Deer Isle and Stonington.  There are numerous hiking trails in the area that can be found on All Trails, as well as easy places to kayak from, the closest of which are the Brooksville Town Landing, or Bucks Harbor public boat launch.

We spent 3 nights in Acadia National Park. Our first night was at the Blackwoods Campground and the last 2 were at the Schoodic Woods Campground. This review is for Schoodic Woods. 

Before visiting Acadia I didn't realize that the 2 areas of Acadia National Park are pretty far from each other. Blackwoods Campground is on Mount Desert Island and is only about a 10 minute drive to Bar Harbor whereas Schoodic Woods Campground is on the Schoodic Peninsula and is closer to an hour away. I found Schoodic Woods to be more peaceful and more spaced out than Blackwoods. It felt further removed from the usual action of a national park. The sites were large and private. We stayed in a long, pull through site which I honestly tend to avoid because they sometimes feel less private but that was definitely not the case here. Our site had electricity, water hook ups and a fire ring. 

The bathroom (no showers) was probably the nicest and cleanest I've ever been to at a campground. 

There are several hiking paths from the campground including one that takes you down to the bay which is about a mile away. The Schoodic Peninsula has a ring road which you can drive around and we stopped at Schoodic Point which was spectacular- huge waves crashing against the rocks. The small town of Winter Harbor is also only about a 5 minute drive from the campground. 

All in all, I really loved this campground. We had a very peaceful time!