Best Campgrounds near Southwest Harbor, ME

Camden Hills State park is centrally located, just at the edge of downtown Camden.  It provides a great home base for hiking, biking, kayaking and exploring the Camden/Rockland area.  

The park has around 100 sites that are categorized by size, and allows rvs and tents.  There are no tent specific sites, and a tent camper could choose a large rv site. Each site has a picnic table and fireplace.  Most spots are wooded, but there  are 8  non wooded, open grassy sites at the front of the park, which have little shade.   About half of the sites have water and electric.  There is a bathhouse, multiple water stations and a dump station.  The park sits on both sides of Rt. 1, and the bottom side is more of a day use area with a pavilion and walking trails and sits on the water.   The bottom part does not, however, have true water access for swimming or kayaking.  The closest place for this the Camden City Park, which is 2.5 miles away, and is a great place to launch a kayak.  Rockport Marine Park at Rockport Harbor is another - it has easy kayak launch access and a very very small beach, which is mostly used for kids to splash around in the water.  The top portion of the park, where all the campsites are, has direct access to Mount Megunticook, and Mount Battie, and offers easy to advanced hikes.  It’s great to be able to do numerous hikes without having to leave the park.  

We liked our site, 61, because it was open, grassy and level, had water and electric and was reservable.  The park rangers were very friendly.  There is a charge for Wi-Fi, and cell service is good enough.  

There are many quality  restaurants in the Camden, Rockland, Rockport area, as well as good bakeries and coffee shops.  The Camden Farmers market is right downtown.  You are less than 10 minutes from central Camden, and 20 minutes to Rockland.

Campground is large but very well designed. About half of the sites are spacious but others are more crowded. Very well maintained with cleaning crew in everyday to maintain restrooms and trash receptacles. The campground has access to ocean trails and Cadillac Mountain. No showers in the campground but private showers are available right outside the campground. The park shuttle has a stop at the campground and I never had to drive out of the campground. It was awesome since I visited at the busiest time of the year.

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!

Quiet and private sites in tent only - some extremely private! Simple clean facilities - no hot water or dish cleaning area. A few nice hikes on this part of ANP (visit the lighthouse but don’t wait for a parking spot…park and walk down .5 mile road!) while farther from most of ANP, all is very easy to get to, not more than 30 min to Bar Harbor. We also stayed 2 nights in Blackwoods and while nice, this campground was more private.

Busy but nice sites-all are pull through- fairly flat and wide for some privacy. Facilities clean-no cleaning station or hot water. Busier part of the park but very central to all - stayed here 2 nights in the RV/non-electric loop and then had a spot at Seawall which was much quieter and private (stayed in tent only on seawall…) short walk from campground to small ocean vista. Also left from the campground to hike Cadillac Mtn South Trail (no pass needed!)

Most private national park camping sites I’ve ever experienced

I really like that the campground has easy access to the hiking trails. Clean bathroom facilities and the free showers were nice and hot. Unfortunately, you can hear quite a bit of road noise.

The KOA staff were very friendly and helpful, the facilities were very clean, and the store was well-stocked. The sites were a bit close, but the neighbors I had during my stay would be out and about during the day if I didn't happen to be out and about in Acadia NP or Bar Harbor myself... so that kind of made up for it. The first few nights of my stay was spent in the "Premium" section where we were on the other side of the road from the "Oceanfront" sites--it almost felt like Oceanfront sites when Big Rigs weren't blocking the view. The next 5 nights we were at an "Oceanfront" site, which was really great and worth the extra money to watch the seals, birds, and easy access for kayaking. HOWEVER--despite knowing privacy isn't really something you can find at most KOAs, it was SHOCKING to me the lack of social awareness some people have at sunset. Despite being next to the public oceanfront area (where lovely chairs and tables are provided) people would literally walk to the Oceanfront campsites and stand there snapping photos or just hanging around at sunset, even if my husband and I were sitting down at our picnic table eating our dinners and trying to enjoy the sunset together. (Picture provided [with blocked faces) of just one of the couples one evening standing right next to our firepit... maybe 10ft from where we were setting up dinner on our picnic table.) So... be prepared with how to handle that if it's something you think may bother you, too.

Little bit of noise, but ok

We just spent 4 wonderful nights here and it is possibly my favorite campground, ever. The campground is relatively new and although they could have fit more sites in here, I am so glad they did not. The sites are carefully designed so that although you might hear your neighbor you likely will not see them. We sleep in our van and also have a tent for storage and changing. Every tent site has electric, and water is available at the bathhouse. There is also a dishwashing station there, as well as trash, recycling, and food scrap bins. There are no showers, but you can wash up in the bathhouse and also heat water at your site for a quick wipe down. That was fine for us for 4 nights. There are some negative reviews on here about the lack of showers but maybe this is just not the campground for them. There are plenty of other campgrounds in the area that have showers. If that's what you're looking for ....

We stayed at A48 and loved it.  The driveway is deep, so we felt very secluded, especially at night. The only thing we didn't like about this site is that the fire ring is in the middle of the site.  We moved the picnic table to the side and had room, but it did. limit our options for the tent a little bit. 

This is a dark sky park so no string lights or anything like that and as a result it is also VERY quiet at night. Very dog friendly and everyone seemed very responsible as far as no barking and picking up after their pets.

At night we drove over to Fraser Point and took amazing photos of the northern lights. Not for the feint of heart, though — it is VERY dark! This is such an amazing campground, I almost don't want to tell you because it feels like a hidden little secret!

We stayed here for two nights. We had a nice spot on the c-loop.

The spaces are (more or less) private and spacious. The best thing about this camp ground is the total darkness and silence at night. A truly wonderful experience in a world that often is polluted by light.

Close by are two nice hiking trails and a lighthouse. All definitely worth a visit.

We would definitely return.

We stayed at Seawall campground for a week. Took me 5 days of being diligently by my computer as the “bank” opened up to get a site. Finally did. Thankfully. However once we arrived, we came in to a 95% at capacity campground with over 50% of the sites having no one on them. And it stayed that way for a week. Booked up, and no one there while others get the shaft. Outside of that, the sites were nice, the rangers were great and the facilities were upkept well. NPS is failing us all with online booking.

The reception at this campground is very friendly. Pitches are fairly spacious, but still a bit close together. Garbage is picked up in the morning, which is very nice.

The sanitary facilities are quite outdated and, in addition, could definitely be a bit cleaner.

The pool is clean, but everything around it also looks very outdated and worn.

We had a pleasant time here and would definitely recommend this place for a few days.

This campground was in a good location to access Acadia National Park. Some nice sites, but definitely at a premium. No extra amenities. We were given a site along the highway, and I was very unhappy there. The site isn’t even in the main campground area. I would have stayed somewhere else if I knew that’s where our site was located. No privacy and it lots of road noise. I did not want to sit outside. Our picnic table was in shambles and chunks of the table fell off when my son tried to sit there. It was in usable to us.

Overall, this was a nice place to stay. The laundromat was helpful. The bathrooms were fairly clean. We had a beautiful view from our campsite! Not all campsites had full hookup and we were told that one of the dump stations worked, but as we were leaving, we realized it didn’t.