07/12/2025
"You're surrounded!"
Sounds ominous...but not if what's surrounding you are the ancient forests and rock formations of Acadia National Park.
My wife and I had always wanted to live on the ocean, but considered it unlikely: we weren't wealthy and had jobs that tethered us to New York City.
Or did they?
20 years ago, we took a chance. We said goodbye to our big-city careers and bought a house in the historic district of Somesville on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Acadia National Park is all around us.
Next, we rebuilt our professional lives. Debra loved her new job as the executive director of a children's camp, and still does. I exited journalism and started a small photography business that got bigger. We'd intended to stay for five years, because we thought of ourselves as adventurous, even peripatetic. Funny: We're still here. Not sure what that says about us.
To me, Mount Desert Island is a special place not just because I call it home or because we've raised three kids here. The attraction goes deeper. It's the land. The views. And in no small measure, the people. Gruff, sometimes, but kind when you scratch the surface. When outsiders flaunt their wealth or put on airs, Mainers treat them with dry amusement and utterly fail to be impressed. Yachts, Bentleys, and couture get you nowhere here. Maine is more egalitarian-minded than any U.S. place I've lived. I like that a lot.
Human character aside, it’s the natural grandeur that put this place on the map. Word of Mount Desert Island's beauty began to spread in the 1880s, when the first generation of tourists (the so-called "rusticators") arrived — mostly painters and sketch artists. Since then, the year-round islanders, who number around 10,000 these days, have shared MDI with easily a hundred million visitors. The Park alone now draws three million-plus sightseers every year.
Few of those guests leave disappointed. Just days ago, in a new Travel+Leisure poll of 657,000 respondents, Mount Desert Island was voted "The Best Island in the Continental U.S." The editors call it the ‘Crown Jewel of the North Atlantic Coast."
Sweet dreams ARE made of this — who are we to disagree?
