Camden, ME
“Camden,” advised my friend Melissa before the start of my New England trip, “is a nice, quaint little town to stop and shop, lunch, etc. We had a fabulous time there.”
As it turned out, Camden also made for a great stopping and turnaround point during my White Mountains to Blue Seas drive.
On this day in Maine, the town was blessed with comfortable temperatures and cloudless skies devoid of anything resembling smog, and from the top of Mt. Battie, it was even possible to peer out to Cadillac Mountain and Bar Harbor 40 miles north.
Downtown was also as clean as the air and hosted numerous restaurants serving up lobster and seafood. There were art galleries and colorful storefronts as well.
The crown jewel, of course, is the harbor. Signs noted the presence of sea otters, but today they were hiding from me.
I was only here for a couple hours, but it was apparent that this town of 5,250 people was affluent—as evidenced by some castle-like houses and Porsches—and had life good.
More vital statistics can be found on Wikipedia and city-data.com. This is one town I can imagine revisiting in the future.