Glamping in Maine: Upgrade Your Camping Experience at Northern Outdoors

In case you haven’t heard of this delightful portmanteau, it’s the ingenious combination of “glamorous” + “camping.” There’s even a website dedicated to glamping and it’s earned its own entry on dictionary.com: 

a form of camping in which participants enjoy physical comforts associated with more luxurious types of holidays. 

Now before you start imagining a spa vacation and its high prices, you should know that like anything in life, glamping comes in many shapes and forms. Some of my more hardcore outdoorsy friends consider car-camping and improved campgrounds (think KOA) to be glamping. For me, glamping is simply adding a few civilized touches to camping without taking away the beauty and stillness of nature. Also, not sleeping on the cold, hard ground is a plus.

While I do have plenty of great memories about camping trips as a kid and young adult–finding just the right spot, setting up the tent, gathering firewood, cooking outdoors on the propane stove, and s’mores. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate having more creature comforts when camping. A thicker sleeping pad, roomier tent–you get the drift. So it wasn’t long before I embarked on my first glamping experience: a simple yurt (a mongolian-inspired circular, above-ground structure). Advantages included playing games late into the evening on a real table, cooking indoors on a propane stove, and sleeping on a comfy bunk bed. Oh, did I mention the outhouse? Very nice.

Glamping in Maine: Northern Outdoors Style

Northern Outdoors Adventure Resort in The Forks
Here at Northern Outdoors, we like to glamp it up in the ways that we believe really matter: super-friendly, casual atmosphere, with a range of creature comforts to suit most folks. For example, when you arrive at our adventure resort, your spacious cabin tent is already set up–no sleeping on the hard ground or crawling around and over your tent mates! Just throw your sleeping bag on your cot and call it good. Your campfire is mere steps away for spooky stories and s’mores, yet you’re within walking distance of a full bar (and microbrewery too!) and restaurant. Stroll up for a soak in the large outdoor hot tub, dive into the pool, or play a game in our game room.

Katahdin Adventure Basecamp & Big Moose Inn
You can still glamp it up quite a bit from your tent or RV (or cabin, of course) at the Big Moose Inn in the Katadhin Region. Set along the Penobscot River basin between two lakes, these wilderness tent sites have plenty of amenities nearby, including a bathhouse, restaurant, and convenience store. You can wander over to The Loose Moose Pub for a home-cooked meal, hot coffee or microbrew. Drop in the general store and pick up a few marshmallows for your s’mores. Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is.

So what’s your next step? Revisit the joys of camping and being surrounded by nature while enjoying those creature comforts your grownup self appreciates and deserves: hot showers, full-service restaurants, full-service bars, brewery, swimming pool, hot tub, and more! If your tastes run to cabins, condos or lodge rooms, we’ve got plenty of those too.

Although we don’t run around acting all glamorous (it’s not really our style, unless you’re here for one of our adventure weddings, which can get pretty glamorous), we pride ourselves on knowing how to glamp with the best of them. Give glamping Maine-style a try!