Schoodic Woods Campground — Acadia National Park
Reviewed Jul. 22, 2022

Distant But Quiet Acadia Campground In It's Own District

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.

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Month of VisitJuly