Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Winter Harbor, ME

This campground is a gem! It is located on the Schoodic Peninsula which is the quieter side section of Acadia National Park but no less breathtaking. Here you get to enjoy the hiking and biking trails, amazing coastal scenery, quaint towns, and a peaceful campground in one of America’s top 10 parks without the crowds and craziness of Bar Harbor and Acadia NP located on Mt. Desert Island (which is only an hour away). I absolutely love the Schoodic Peninsula and the town of Winter Harbor which has such a “Downeast” Maine feel.

The campground opened in 2015 and has 200 sites all within a 15-minute walk to the ocean. Although most of the campsites are designated for tents, there are some available for RV’s. Sites have a decent amount of privacy so you don’t feel like you are right on top of your neighbor. Since the campground is is relatively new not all the trees have filled in from construction but they did a great job preserving trees and shrubs. It is best to reserve online as this park fills up and very rarely has a walk-up site. The ranger station will not make reservations over the phone so don’t bother calling. (Acadia NP is a “fee” park so you will need to buy a park pass.)  All sites have electric (20/30/50) and some have electric and water only reflected in cheaper prices

Fee (per site, per night):

$22 hike-in tent sites (primitive)

$30 drive up tent/small RV (20 amp)

$36 RV with electric only sites (20/30/50 amp)

$40 RV with electric and water (20/30/50 amp)

$60 group tent sites

Picnic tables are at every site but fire pits are only at RV sites as no open fires are allowed in the tent section. Tent sites are allowed to use portable camp stoves such as white gas or iso-butane cartridges. The bathrooms have flush toilets and potable water but there are no showers or laundry facilities. There are some places in the nearby town of Winter Harbor that have shower facilities of which the ranger station has information on.   A dish-washing station if located at the bathrooms which is really handy and kept clean.  There is a dump station located towards the exit of the park if you have an RV. 

Surrounding the campground are miles of biking and hiking trails that are easily accessible from your campsite. There is a six-mile loop that takes you along the beautiful rocky coast with views of lighthouses, islands, forests, and wetlands. An additional eight miles of carriage roads and four miles of hiking trails wind through the park.

The town of Winter Harbor is located two miles from the park and a ferry dock which takes you to Mt. Desert Island. The Acadia Island Explorer shuttle provides free transportation between various locations, island attractions, and towns (and is dog-friendly and can accommodate bikes). The shuttle operates from late June to mid-October and is a great way to get around if you don’t have a car or want the hassle of parking.

Located at the Schoodic Institute is the Education and Research Center which offers interesting programs and has a visitor center. The town of Corea has a great waterside restaurant where you can sit outside and eat lobster while watching the boats go in and out. J. M. Garrish Café in Winter Harbor is a great place to get a bite to eat and an ice cream Sunday.

When we made the decision to visit Acadia National Park, I blindly made a reservation for a site at one of the campgrounds, not really paying attention to where specifically in the park the campground was located. The Schoodic Woods Campground is located on the Schoodic Peninsula, which is east of Mt. Desert Island. It’s still within Acadia National Park but is located outside Winter Harbor and is not near Bar Harbor like the majority of the park. At first I was a little bummed we were about an hour away from the main part of the park, but my mood immediately changed once we arrived. Oh my goodness, if you’re looking to connect w/the wonders of Acadia & avoid the crowds, stay here! It was amazing & the lack of light pollution at night made the star-gazing spectacular! There’s biking, hiking, a ferry that runs seasonally to Bar Harbor, and quaint harbor communities nearby. We loved it!

We lucked out and snagged a long weekend reservation during peak weekend. This was one of the best campgrounds I have ever stayed at. The grounds were super clean and impeccably maintained. The rangers were helpful and kind. Sites are spaced far enough apart that you have some privacy.

This National Park campground is on the quiet side and section of the park. It’s about an hours drive from the main/popular trails and Bar Harbor. We loved the sleepy and peaceful vibe of Winter Harbor. It’s about a 10 minute drive away from Schoodic point - which was a bonus for us to see the sunrise without any crowds and for stargazing. There is almost no light pollution on the point and the Milky Way was visible around 10pm on a clear night we were there. Also saw shooting stars walking around the grounds at night with my headlamp off which was delightful.

Bathrooms here are plentiful and clean, but no shower facilities. Each bathroom building also has a very nice dishwashing station outside so we never had fo wait to do camp dishes.

Make sure to book in advance as this is a popular place and fills up as soon as the reservations open (60 days in advance of your start date).

We stayed for a week at one of the hike in sites, specifically the one furthest from the car/RV camping area. The sites are newer looking with nice tent pads, a bear box, and a picnic table. It’s a few minutes’ walk from the campsite to an immaculately clean vault toilet. The bathroom for the car camping area with running water, the dishwashing area, and WiFi were maybe a 2 minute walk beyond that. We had such an amazing time and spent the majority of our time on the Schoodic peninsula. We only went to the main part of the park twice the whole week. Plenty of trails, scenic views, and things to do just in Schoodic Woods. It’s also WAY less crowded than the main part of the park. Winter Harbor has a few restaurants and little shops but no big grocery/big box stores that I saw so stop on the way if you need stuff. The rangers were all very nice and helpful. I can’t wait to go back!

Schoodic Woods is the best of the three Acadia National Park Campgrounds for camping, though the worst for convenience to major attractions. Opened only in 2015, the facilities here are ample, new, and well-maintained compared to the two other Acadia campgrounds.

Schoodic Woods lives off the "main island" of Acadia, on a large, adjacent inlet and operates as a separate National Park district called, surprise, "The Schoodic District".

There are a couple short, easy trails accessible by foot from within the campground. Schoodic Loop Road -- less popular than the main park "Park Loop Road", provides access to gorgeous shore line views and more hiking trails, but RVs and trailers aren't allowed past the campground entrance, which is fairly early on the road. If you have a campervan, you may be able to pass as a car for full access to the Schoodic Loop Road, however the Schoodic District, being newer, is the most heavily trafficked and closely enforced area of Acadia National Park by the Park Rangers, and so the more you look like an "RV", the less likely you are to make the cut.

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INTERNET: Access here varies quite a bit. The "Standard" site loops have 1-2 bars of T-Mobile and Verizon LTE that seems usable for basic e-mail and slow web-browsing, but little else. There is a good amount of tree coverage, but the campsites are well laid out and fairly open toward the road. Our Starlink worked flawlessly here for 6 straight days. In the "RV" classified sites, there is also campground WiFi with its own password provided free-of-charge by the National Park, but the service is so slow as to be basically unusable.

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MAJOR PROS: The newest, most quiet, relaxed, well maintained and well Rangered of the three Acadia campgrounds. Bathrooms are less than a decade old and the campground overall resolves virtually all of the issues you find at Blackwoods and Seawall. The bathrooms also have fully functional exterior dishwashing areas outside where they even provide Dawn dish soap.

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What Schoodic Woods Campground lacks in accessibility to Acadia's main attractions, it makes up for as a campground experience. Although you'll be doing quite a bit more driving to all the park's best features (close to an hour each way), you'll also have the most pleasant, clean, accommodating camping experience in the National Park here.

There are a few trails accessible within or nearby the Campground, including a very well maintained bike loop, a 4.7 mile trail accessible from behind the Group Camping loop, and the highlight, the Schoodic Harbor Trail accessible from just past the Campground visitor center.

The nearby town of Winter Harbor is the smallest and least useful of nearby towns for provisions, but there are a few small roadside grocers and gas stations. As with the other two campgrounds, firewood is not available in the park itself, but is available from multiple nearby roadside vendors for $3 to $5 a bundle and the park will even encourage you to use these.

An excellent camping experience overall, minus one star for the lack of showers -- not available in any Acadia NP campground -- and for the distance of travel required to reach some of the park's high points. Other than that, this is the place to choose.