Bargain -Unappreciated Maine towns - houses (Lewiston, Caribou: apartments, unemployment rate, transfer)

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by filmsniffer

That's good and all...so what are some names of the towns up in the country?

The 3 good sized towns are Caribou, Presque Isle and Houlton (county seat). That's north to south.
Fort Kent, Madawaska and Fort Fairfield are all a bit smaller (4-5,000). (BUT!... there's a town of 2-3,000 literally right across the bridge from Fort Kent, in New Brunswick. And, there's a city of 20,000 right across the bridge from Madawaska in NB).
Van Buren has about 3,000, but has a town right across the bridge that's the same size.

Then, 1,500 to 2,000 are Limestone, Mars Hill, Ashland, Patten, Washburn, Mapleton, Frenchville and Easton.
Then about a dozen others a bit smaller than that......
Then about a dozen other villages, smaller than THAT!

[atardie]

Check out Mapleton! A great little town just 5 minutes from P.I. The "largerst town in the County. Good home prices without the high taxes of P.I. If you want more info, let me know.

[mollysmiles]

My son will be attending UMPI in January (IF he finishes the Army AIT schools for Nat'l Guard in time) and I'm looking forward to him being up there. We drove up for his preadmission interview, and I was reminded of how beautiful northern Maine is. I hadn't been up that way in a couple of years, and it doesn't take long to kind of forget how striking some of those areas really are! I'm hoping that with him in school there we'll be in the area more often with time to explore. I can't even complain about the drive--especially with a stop at Houlton Dairy along the way.

[lawmom]

What's sad is that growing up in South Portland, I did not know Maine at all beyond the Lewiston/Auburn area. I scoffed at little old Bangor (having never been there, mind you -- hey, I was a kid.)

I moved away, and then found myself back in Maine in, you guessed it, Bangor. I really liked it. But I've never been much north of Bangor, and am sad that I missed that opportunity. There is most of the state that I have never seen.

[Elcarim]

I've said it many times, and now I *know* it to be true, but you really can find any lifestyle you desire in Maine. You just have to seek it out. We've done a fair amount of traveling since we arrived, and we've still not seen the majority of the state. That's funny to me, since Maine is so tiny compared to Texas. The thing we've found, though, is that you want to move through each area slowly, so it's going to take us a while to see it all! Maine is jam packed FULL of life. Just pick your corner!

[atardie]

Maine changes greatly above Bangor. We live a little more laid back, a little more willing to endure the long winters, a little more resourceful, a little more proud. We are all proud to be from Maine, just some of us more than others. Mainers are Mainers, born here or not.

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by mollysmiles

My son will be attending UMPI in January (IF he finishes the Army AIT schools for Nat'l Guard in time) and I'm looking forward to him being up there. We drove up for his preadmission interview, and I was reminded of how beautiful northern Maine is. I hadn't been up that way in a couple of years, and it doesn't take long to kind of forget how striking some of those areas really are! I'm hoping that with him in school there we'll be in the area more often with time to explore. I can't even complain about the drive--especially with a stop at Houlton Dairy along the way.

I'm glad you can come up now and then............and that you discovered Houlton Farms Dairy! YUMMMM
Come up in early October.............breathtaking time, as good as Vermont.

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by lawmom

What's sad is that growing up in South Portland, I did not know Maine at all beyond the Lewiston/Auburn area. I scoffed at little old Bangor (having never been there, mind you -- hey, I was a kid.)

I moved away, and then found myself back in Maine in, you guessed it, Bangor. I really liked it. But I've never been much north of Bangor, and am sad that I missed that opportunity. There is most of the state that I have never seen.

It pains me to say that you haven't seen much of the REAL Maine!
But it's never too late!

[lawmom]

But we're in NM now! Although we do hope to get back to Maine and MA every summer if we can.

[Newdaawn]

We have been in Maine for over 45 years now after growing up in MA. We make a point of visiting couple of places every year that we have never been. This July we went to Union for the Open Farm Days and visited a nice little winery there "Sweetgrass" and also a small dairy farm... Lovely countryside.

Last summer we discovered that Camden actually has a small "beach". I believe it is called "Laite", that is less than a mile from the center. We were there in the fall so there was a place to park. In the summer I doubt there would have been. Camden also has Megunticook Lake which is gorgeous. I recently learned that if we had gone a few miles farther on the road that the public lake beach is on, there are trails to climb to view the lake from up above. Maine is full of surprizes.