Best Campgrounds near Southwest Harbor, 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.

The sites here are nicely wooded and have a decent amount of separation between most of them BUT the campground is located too close to the road and, with the exception of sites 84-87 and cabins 8-10, you will hear road noise in your site. Options are 10 rustic cabins, tent sites, partial and FHU sites. 

The bathhouse was very clean and there are both outdoor and indoor showers; both looked nice although we did not use them. 

I thought $50 for a tent site was a little steep but it was all the potential extra fees that irked me:

*$30 site lock to ensure you get the site you want when you reserve. I took a chance and was able to get the site I reserved without paying this fee

*$4 weather guarantee (allows you to cancel due to inclement weather). I didn’t bother with this one

*7.95 if you need to hook up to WiFi. We were able to use our own portable WiFi

*$10 to use the dump station (we found another place that charged $5) 

Aside from the fees and proximity to the road, this is a nice campground with a host of amenities: pool (which I was surprised was still open on October 1), horseshoes, laundry, dishwashing sink, a playground, and trash pick-up at your site. There is also a path to the shore with picnic tables, and chairs. Repairs to the sea wall are in progress so caution was recommended.

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.

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.