Nice campground with minimal tree cover, clean bathrooms with running water. Dump station and access to the lake by foot or by boat. One electric loop that is generally fairly full, the rest are non-electric and sparsely populated.
We stayed 10 days here, 7 in electric sites, 3 in non-electric sites. The views are incredible. A lot of wind as you're sort of in a valley between mountains and everything pushes through.
The main issue here is this place has a serious rodent issue. There are, with no exaggeration, thousands of chipmunks and field mice in this area moving in and around campsites. Even when completely closed up and self-contained, they tend to crawl into the underbelly of the vehicles/RVs or slip into tents. They'll crawl in and around tents. If you have dogs (and thus dog food), or near by someone who does, that also seems to be an issue.
In 10 days there we had two chipmunks and a mouse get into our RV, and heard several other tent campers and RV campers complain about the same problem. Clearly a lot of these guys are being fed or just picking up scraps as none of them have any fear of dogs or humans.
Would rate this campground higher if not for the serious rodent problem. 5/5 for access, scenery, power accessibility, clean bathrooms. 1/5 for serious rodent issue.
Allegheny National Forest is Pennsylvania's only National Forest and a gem of a location for outdoor recreation. Hearts Content itself is a well-maintained, very quiet campground with some of the most private sites we've experienced in 15 years of regular car camping.
Site A02 is very nice for privacy, one of the three front sites which means a bit of road traffic for other arriving campers, but covered by dense old-growth forest on all three sides and well set off the road. Ample tree coverage means an excellent shade canopy, but not-so-great if you're powering your rig with solar.
Clean, good-tasting drinking water at several community water spigots are available, and the central grassy area even contains a clean and well-maintained playground.
The campground itself is actually across the road from the Recreation Area. The Recreation Area is home to 3 nice hiking trails, including one all-season trail that converts to a cross-country skiing trail in the snowy months, as well as some picnic tables and a restroom.
The campground has a couple pit toilets that have been very well maintained by campground hosts each year we've been there. Zero smell or problems here, they appear to be looked after daily. They are still pit toilets so this is not exactly a luxury affair, but as pit toilets go, these definitely suffice.
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INTERNET: One bar of usable Verizon 4G LTE and T-Mobile 4G LTE suitable for slow web browsing and e-mail, but little else. Because of the very dense tree cover here, Starlink is not really a viable option. The most southern facing sites have more of a clearing which may work for Starlink, but are smaller, less private, and also face the group campsite which is well trafficked by Boy Scout troops and other summer camp gatherings, so you're upping your noise quite a bit.
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MAJOR PROS: This is a great campground to just enjoy camping. Set some 15 miles back in old growth forest, the most private of the campsites provide a very pleasant wilderness experience but still some well-maintained amenities like fresh drinking water and good pit toilets. In our experience camping here several times over several years, weekdays are very quiet at this location, perhaps the quietest of any campground of this size and caliber we've experienced anywhere. It's only really Friday evenings and Saturdays where you'll see more than 3-4 other campers in this place.
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The closest nearby town is Warren, PA a small but service-rich town set on the Allegheny River that provides all the necessary stuff - a Wal Mart, a Lowes, and plenty of restaurants and little shops. Warren is the longtime home of a refinery of some sort and on days when the downwind is blowing especially strong, you can catch the faint whiff of a funky but ambiguous smell of…something?
Cell service kicks up to 5G on T-Mobile in Warren itself, but you're still stuck on 4G with Verizon, as of summer 2022.
Back to the campground, I would highly recommend this place for people who can get out there on weekdays and enjoy peace and quiet. Firewood is available for sale at the Camp Host campsite, but there's so much downed wood behind just about every site that purchasing wood really isn't necessary: you can keep a hot fire going all night, for free, just by cleaning out the underbrush.
This is such a pretty, quiet campsite that during weekdays the area deer will often approach from the woods behind the campsites to feast on low hanging leaves. We've seen dozens of them who will get within 10-20 yards of you for a snack later into the night. While never getting too close, it does make for a pleasant wildlife viewing opportunity.
We really like this place. No showers or other running-water facilities and limited internet service prevent this place from being a perfect 5. It is also a bit of a drive into town for provisions or daily ingress if you need these amenities. That aside, tent, trailer or RV, you are likely to enjoy your experience here if you enjoy camping at all.
Seawall Campground is the quieter of the two main island campgrounds in Acadia National Park and as a campground experience, for us, the middle experience of the three in quality.
This is a very quiet campground that tends to attract quieter and more respectful campers, and a larger percentage of tent campers than the other two locations. Sites are close together and densely wooded. Privacy is a bit of a lottery here. While campsites are deep and set off the road, some of them open up to each other at the rear points of each site, providing the illusion of privacy toward the road but much less privacy in reality. Others are very private and would feel as if you had no neighbors at all.
For privacy concerns, avoid the interior campsites however possible: They are completely open not only to one another, but the restroom trails actually go through the middle of many of these campsites, meaning you can expect foot traffic within a few yards of your site at all hours of the day. The exterior loops are the way to go here.
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INTERNET: Of the three campgrounds at Acadia National Park, internet here was the most challenging. We were able to find a spot in our campsite that allowed Starlink to work with 23% obstructions. That is far too high a percentage of obstructions for use without intermittent down time rendering it unusable for video chats, streaming, and other related work, though it's good enough for quick tasks if you don't mind frequent drops in service. T-Mobile and Verizon did not provide any service here.
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MAJOR PROS: Welcome 2 the Quiet Side! That's the sign that a nearby roadside business flashes at you as you enter the Seawall camping area, and it is accurate. Seawall Campground is very quiet compared with its sister site Blackwoods on the other side of the island. So quiet, in fact, that you can hear the ocean breeze and the crash of waves from the exterior campsites during quiet hours. A very pleasant way to sleep.
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Like Blackwoods, the restrooms at Seawall are dated and about half of them were out of order during our stay. The lack of internet is frustrating for full-timers who might need it for work or use it more heavily for recreation while traveling, but there are several roadside pull-offs with spectacular ocean views, as well as the Seawall Picnic area just outside the campground, where Starlink will work flawlessly. But cell service is basically a no-go here, at least for T-Mobile and Verizon.
Many other reviewers have reported seeing Moose near or in the campground here. No such luck for us, but we did see dozens of deer (big and small) in this location; by far the most wildlife of any of the three Acadia campgrounds.
There are several nice and easy hikes nearby, but all the hikes in this area are very heavily trafficked from dawn on, seemingly every day.
Seawall is a 30-40 minute drive to the main attractions at Acadia, putting it behind Blackwoods but ahead of Schoodic Woods for convenience.
The nearby town of Southwest Harbor is smaller and less busy than Bar Harbor on the other side of the island, but provides access to all necessary provisions. Ellsworth, where you'll find the nearest Wal Mart, Home Depot, and several restaurants, is about 35 minutes away.
Like Schoodic Woods and Blackwoods, Seawall does not host any campground showers, but there are privately owned and highly-rated pay showers about 1 mile outside the campground that run about $3 for 5 minutes of hot water in private stalls. This is also a place to grab ice and vending snacks.
Overall, Seawall is a good-but-not-great campground with dated facilities and variable privacy depending on your site selection. Minus points for lack of internet access and older amenities, plus points for living up to its name as the "quiet" side of the main Acadia Island. This would not be my first choice for camping in Acadia National Park (that'd go to Schoodic), but is an excellent middle ground for those who still want peace-and-quiet and don't mind a bit of a drive to the main attractions, without having to make that drive an all day, gas guzzling affair.
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.
Blackwoods Campground is the largest and most popular of the three campgrounds at Acadia National Park. While it is very close and most convenient to the main attractions of the park, this also makes it very crowded. There are approximately 300 campsites at Blackwoods although it shares roughly the same physical landmass as its newer, quieter sister campground Schoodic Woods, which holds only about half that many campsites.
The campground is laid out kind of like a spider web, with very narrow roads separating very narrow campsites. There is ample tree coverage, but little underbrush and the trees are trimmed high into the air, meaning there is virtually no privacy between campsites on your left or right. The narrow roads both in front and behind most sites mean you are also exposed to your neighbors in those directions.
The tent sites are a little more private and densely wooded, but a further walk from the facilities.
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INTERNET: We did have two bars of T-Mobile 4G LTE and 1 usable bar of Verizon 4G LTE as well. Due to the heavy forestation and cramped campsites here, our Starlink was not usable because of too many obstructions.
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MAJOR PROS: Blackwoods is most convenient to all the main attractions at Acadia, including a short, easy, well maintained quarter mile walk down to a spectacular Ocean view from inside the campsite itself. It is also a close drive to the fantastic Park Loop Road for road tourists, and is the closest campsite to the Cadillac Mountain Drive and viewing opportunity, which is the highlight of a Acadia trip for those who like to chase picturesque sunrises (available only by reservation or a 6.7 mile round-trip hike from inside the campground itself).
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While the convenience is nice, this brings out the tourists. This campground is heavily (and I mean heavily) trafficked by families. The campground roads itself are a veritable super highway of children ages 7-13 making endless loops on their bicycles from sun-up to sundown, all day every day. It is noisy. There are crying babies and loud kids playing. Families blasting music past quiet hours and party-goers virtually every night of the week.
It's convenience and popularity means this campground also gets the most novice and disrespectful campers of the three campgrounds. Out of our stay at all three sites, this was the only location where we encountered disrespectful camp neighbors, who not only allowed but actively encouraged their young children to cut through our campsite on the way to the restroom, trash bins, etc. We also had several pieces of fire wood stolen, and someone used our fire pit as a trash receptacle and poured out a large vat of cooking grease on our campsite while we were out for the day.
The bathrooms themselves are the oldest and poorest maintained of the three campgrounds. While we were there in the busiest part of the season (July), pretty much every restroom had about half the toilet stalls out of order. The corner/handicap stalls in each restroom also have a peculiar design where the exterior facing windows are not glossed over or privatized in anyway, meaning anyone of adult height (5'7" or higher, let's say) could look into that stall either intentionally or inadvertently.
Our verdict? While the proximity to all of Acadia's feature attractions is nice, a campground is for camping, and this was the least pleasant of our three experiences there. It's worth the 30-minute to 1-hour drive from the other two campgrounds in Acadia to have a quieter, more mature, better camping experience.