Where to Live Now
Six Maine Towns Worth Knowing
Not the postcard towns. The ones with a story — working waterfronts, arts communities, mountain lake culture, and the kind of affordability that still exists if you know where to look.
Eastport
Eastport is the easternmost city in the United States and one of the most quietly remarkable places in New England. Perched on a peninsula surrounded by tides that rise and fall 24 feet — the second highest in the Western Hemisphere — it has the bones of a major 19th-century sardine and shipping port and the soul of a small arts community that moved in when everyone else moved out. Houses here sell for what cars cost elsewhere. The people who stay do so on purpose.
- ✦Median home price under $120,000 — among the lowest in coastal New England
- ✦Second highest tidal range in the Western Hemisphere
- ✦Growing arts scene with a strong year-round community
You want the real thing — remote, affordable, working waterfront — and you're not looking for a soft landing.
Blue Hill
Blue Hill has been drawing writers, musicians, and intellectuals for over a century — quietly, without announcing itself. The Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival has run every summer since 1902. There's a Waldorf school, a serious food co-op, and a year-round farmers market that draws from a farming community with deep roots. The peninsula juts into Blue Hill Bay with views that change every hour. It's the kind of town where you meet someone at the hardware store who turns out to be a published novelist.
- ✦Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival — running continuously since 1902
- ✦Strong Waldorf school and intentional education community
- ✦Genuine year-round arts and intellectual culture
You want a community with depth — music, food, books, land — and you're willing to drive an hour for a hardware store that doesn't have everything.
Castine
Castine has been fought over by the British, the French, and the Dutch — and it looks like it. The Federal-era architecture along its tree-lined streets is among the most intact in New England. Maine Maritime Academy gives the town an unusual energy: tall ships in the harbor, cadets in uniform walking to class, a deep connection to the sea. Under 1,400 people live here year-round, and most of them chose it very deliberately. There are few places in America that feel this complete at this scale.
- ✦Maine Maritime Academy — tall ships and maritime culture year-round
- ✦Some of the best-preserved Federal architecture in New England
- ✦Remarkably intact small-town character — no strip malls, no chains
You want to live somewhere that feels like history decided to stay — and you're drawn to water, ships, and a town that knows what it is.
Rangeley
Rangeley sits at 1,500 feet elevation in the western Maine mountains, surrounded by a chain of lakes so cold and clear they were the basis for L.L.Bean's trout guide business a century ago. The skiing at Saddleback is serious. The fly fishing on the Kennebago River is serious. The snowmobile trails connect to Quebec. This is a community that has built its identity entirely around four seasons of outdoor life — and the people who live here don't want it any other way.
- ✦Saddleback Mountain ski resort — uncrowded, affordable, and genuine
- ✦World-class fly fishing on the Kennebago River and Rangeley Lakes
- ✦Snowmobile trail network connecting to Quebec — 100+ miles of groomed trails
You want elevation, lakes, skiing, and a community that measures the year in seasons — not quarters.
Milbridge
Milbridge is the wild blueberry capital of the world — not a marketing claim, but a geographic fact. The barrens that surround the town turn blue-red every August. The waterfront is a working one: lobster boats, clam flats, fish houses. The annual Milbridge Days celebration includes a codfish relay race that has been run the same way for decades. This is Downeast Maine before the vacation economy arrived, and it's stayed that way because not enough people know it exists.
- ✦Wild blueberry barrens — the largest concentration in the world
- ✦Milbridge Days — a genuine community festival, codfish relay and all
- ✦Working waterfront with active lobster and clam fishing economy
You want a working waterfront town that hasn't been discovered yet — and you don't mind driving 45 minutes to a movie theater.
Lubec
Lubec is the easternmost town in the continental United States. Every sunrise hits here first. A bridge connects it to Campobello Island, Canada — where Franklin Roosevelt spent his summers — and the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse stands at the edge of the continent. Artists have been quietly buying cheap houses here for two decades, drawn by the light, the remoteness, and what $100,000 can buy. The community is small, intentional, and holds itself together with the particular toughness of people who chose the hard edge of the country on purpose.
- ✦West Quoddy Head Lighthouse — the easternmost point in the continental US
- ✦Bridge access to Campobello Island and New Brunswick, Canada
- ✦Home prices among the most affordable in all of coastal New England
You want the absolute end of the road — dramatic scenery, deep quiet, and a community that's earned its remoteness.
Not sure which town is right for you?
The Maine Relocation Guide includes a 30-page deep dive into every region — town profiles, tax rate comparisons, school rankings, broadband coverage maps, and a worksheet to help you figure out where your life in Maine actually makes sense.
Thousands of people have used it to narrow down the decision before making the trip to look at property.