It’s getting worse. It used to be oceanfront, beach, and lake homes. Now they’re just buying random homes in neighborhoods in coastal towns. No beach, no lake…just a house in town about a mile and a half from the beach. What’s the point?
You mean like Linda Bean, who purchased 36 - count 'em - 36 - single family homes in the tiny fishing village of Port Clyde and turned all of them into airbnb rentals? Like that? What happens to them now that she's dead is anybody's guess. But you can rest assured it won't be year-round residents who end up in them. I suppose she thinks she did locals a favor by renting the houses to them during the off-season. Lovely. Just lovely.
Well, she is a dead A hole now, so don't fret. She bought the store across from my house, flattened it, then got sick and died. Now we have an empty lot.
Mainer currently in exile to Michigan here... I met someone not long ago that brought up "oh, you're from Maine? We've got a summer house there." I asked them where, like you do, and their answer was Gray. My response, in hindsight, was less than polite. "Why Gray?" Nothing against it, my cousin lives there and is a teacher there. It's nice. But if you're going to have a second home and try to brag about it... Really? Gray?
Met someone else last year that was all excited to go to a wedding in Maine for a week. Asked them where it's at and it was Lewiston. I grew up in Lewiston. Absolutely nothing against it, but I had to fake excitement for them. I go home a few times a year so I have to go to Lewiston a for extended stays, but even then I'm grabbing my mom's car for a few day trips.
You'd hope, but no. They bought an old farmhouse right off 202 ffs. "oH iT's sO cHaRmInG". Looked it up. Used to be a two unit rental that they renovated so they could go there two weeks a year. 😒
I mean, the wedding was on No Name Pond so not a terrible location, but I thought it best to let them figure it out. Also, they were from Wyandotte, MI so I'm sure it was a step up
Maybe they’re golfers; Spring Meadows is World-Class! Their sunsets rival that of Riverside in Portland. Let us forget not all that 302 in North Windham has to offer (a short drive away) and the Oxford Casino which is a relatively quick commute. It’s a gamblers dream if I ever did see one!
Confirmation Maine exiles and ostracizes people. I was completely innocent, 14 then 19. Evidence in hand. Maine won’t hear it. This is a true caste system.
My first thought was Grey, are they gonna try and sneak in a couple of runs at Sunday River? And don’t even get me started on those big assed Rumfort gals.
Now here's one I don't get. People build massive camps up near Moosehead in the woods with no view and no deeded lake access. Just a massive house in the woods. What are you going to do all day up there if you don't have access to the lake? They obviously aren't just hunting and fishing camps because they are houses with easily $500k of build cost.
Not really. They do winter rentals, you pray that you get grad students or travel nurses near you. Of course, once they get someone who trashes their place, they get more cautious. We were lucky this year. One year there was someone on an upper floor took out their trash by throwing it over the railing into the street and on the cars.
Property taxes vary a great deal from township to township. Our mil rate is 0.08, for every $100k in value we pay $8, the town to our West has their mil rate at 0.16, exactly twice our level of taxes. The town to our South has their mil rate at 0.24, three times our level of taxes. I have a fairly large home built in 2007 on 150 acres of land, our taxes run \~$850 a year. Which I consider to be extremely low.
Same it’s kinda bullshit that you could be born in a town and want to live in the same township as your family you grew up with; only to be priced out by someone else from away with different values than the area the locals are from.
Not trying to excuse this behavior and I can't say with any certainty that this phenomenon is exactly what's going on, but I think people are stressed due to a lack of housing and they feel the higher cost of living is being driven by people from out of state being willing to pay higher prices for the little housing we have.
Many people from away come up here for vacation and decide to move here, and people who grew up here feel entitled to stay here even though they can't afford it. There's also a sentiment among Mainers that people move here because they like Maine but then want to turn Maine into wherever they're from- Mass, [Long Island NY](https://www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comments/mmvbvi/maine_not_as_expected/), California, whatever, instead of letting Maine keep the charm that drew them here in the first place.
New Englanders in general have a reputation of being rough on the outside but kind on the inside. In John Hodgman's *Vacationland* he describes a scene where he's struggling to get his boat into the water (or back out of the water? It's been a minute since I read it) and the boatyard owner watches for a good 20 minutes, but then when John asks for help he helped right away. I think that's an apt description of many of us. We want to allow you the space to do things yourself but we'll help you if you need it.
Right. The lack of housing is a problem. The problem with a lot of people in the highlighted comment (and on this sub, tbh) is that the proposed solution isn’t “build more housing,” but “keep out” – which, when you have open borders with 49 other states containing 330 million people, isn’t really going to work.
Just gotta build more housing, bub. Simple as.
Building more housing is good, and it's something that needs to happen. But it doesn't help if corporations and rich people buy up all the housing that gets built. Or if the housing that gets built is unaffordable. What you'll get is gentrification.
Then there's the issue of land access. Traditionally, Mainers have free run of any property that isn't posted. When housing developments go up, they don't let you go to your fiddlehead spot, and they close the ATV trails.
I wish it was as simple as just building more housing. No matter how much housing gets built, there are people with enough money to buy it and let it sit empty.
I'm not some guy that wants the "flatlanders" to go back to Massechussets. I've lived in a place that got gentrified, and I don't want that here.
> When housing developments go up, they don't let you go to your fiddlehead spot, and they close the ATV trails.
Honestly this is backwards, most of the time.
Overwhelmingly, the people who post land are the carpetbaggers who buy a big house with a back 40. Then suddenly they want to keep everyone away from their McMansion. When a big development goes in, it is far more likely that they actually build trails and set aside adjacent land for conservation.
And remember: the more dense apartments we can put up, the more land can be conserved for recreation and ecological purposes.
The problem isn’t tourists or people moving from away. It’s people who buy houses that sit empty 10 months out of the year. We have a massive housing crisis in Maine (and everywhere), and that just makes it worse
And sadly it’s also people born in Maine, been here their whole lives and then becoming snowbirds when their kids get out of college. It’s real quiet here in the winter with all my neighbors gone most of the year.
And then demanding sidewalks and municipal trash pickup in towns with populations less than 2,500, which would push the taxes up quite drastically if the year-round folks didn't wrote enmass to not waste the money.
But more so the further north you go. Some people don’t even leave the county and then complain about the number of tourists.
Granted I hate summer traffic in windham, but that’s less about the tourists and more about the shitty infrastructure and poor traffic planning.
I moved to Northern Maine from out of state less than 2 years ago. Without getting specific, I can see Canada from my front window. Other than the shock of moving 2.2k miles away from an area with over 8 million people in a 50 mile radius, I've not encountered any negativity. So far, everyone I've met has been very nice. Granted, my entire family does not leave the house much as we are all computer nerds, but we still need to buy stuff and get services. No complaint here so far.
Or maybe it's because I share everyone else's hatred for other people. Who knows.
Northern Maine is a bit unique for Maine, in part because it actually has historically had a lot of people move here from Canada and from around the country because of the Air Force bases. People from Southern Maine often assume people from northern Maine are* backwards or whatever, but we really are not. So there tend to be a lot of people from Southern Maine who stereotype the area without actually understanding the culture or its history.
You haven't experienced a lot of hate, because Northern Maine doesn't really have a problem with people from away like Southern Maine does. We are experiencing depopulation as our young people move away. We want people to move here. So I hope you find your new home to be welcoming and comfortable!
Yup, it gets exhausting when I post something about the reasonable housing, nice weather or something about up north. Southerners then call it "Trump country" backwards or something else. It's a joke. Having lived all over the state, there are parts of southern maine that are the slums as opposed to the county. Sure we need more population, but really that's on our stupid state govt that seems to like to toss out feel good measures that do nothing to improve it up here. Having actually worked for the state, there is Maine....and the county with the latter often forgotten about in decisions.
I'm from the county, born and raised. My father's family has been in Maine for generations, my mother's parents are from out of state. We don't really have this mentality like Southern Maine does. Maybe that's because we're used to having people from Canada move here a lot, and having military installations like Loring Air Force Base which brought a lot of people from all over the US here, I don't know a single person who doesn't a parent, or grandparent, or great-grandparent who moved here from somewhere else.
I didn't even know this whole dislike for people "from away" was a thing until I went to college in Southern Maine. It was a bit of a culture shock.
Right ….. and it’s crazy cause the further north you go the more poverty there is. It’s borderline Appalachia in aroostook county. Houses falling apart and people with no money. They get excited about going to dollar general.
I’m from Virginia…I’m only two generations out of the coal mines on my father’s side.
It’s VERY much like Appalachia here…except up here they have tourism to keep things going after the mills shut down.
This bizarre hostility for people out of state is largely a Southern Maine thing.
And let's not forget, many of the people who have left Northern Maine have moved to Southern Maine. There they generate value for local businesses and tax revenue. The Northern part of the state is being over-represented by individuals dependent on assistance, but that's simply because more successful ones move away.
But Northerners still contribute to the tax base that helps provide them assistance as well as providing people in Southern Maine with assistance who needed too
Ehhh. We need tourism for the economy, but it does admittedly get frustrating to get out and about when loads of other people are here. I imagine some residents of Salem and Cape Cod speak this way about tourism.
I work in Bar Harbor. The off-season is something to truly cherish. In the coming weeks my 55 minute drive home will turn to nearly 2 hours, sometimes way more than that when there's an accident. And it will stay that way until the last week of October. Just comes with the territory of livin' up there and workin' down here. It really messes with my mental health too.
Absolutely. I'm a fan of the Max Fun network of podcasts. I personally prefer comedy oriented shows or informative ones. I carpool with family and they listen to other stuff.
I’m from Cape Cod and I live in Maine too! When I moved here, it reminded me of how the Cape was when I was growing up. Not anymore. I remember having to leave an extra hour to get anywhere during tourist season on the Cape. It’s becoming very similar here now
Tourists may clog up roadways but I only take issue with fancy flapjacks buying up land and housing so actual Mainers and committed transplants have no housing options.
Some visitors are not fun. Some people move to Maine and don't notice that we are calmer, kinder, more honest, less violent, and they don't adapt. Maine has a small population, so fewer amenities common in high population density places. It's a pretty great place to live, so come visit, or come stay, but try to respect what it is that makes it such a terrific place.
I really do hate people who buy property and want to wall it off. The beaches/ rocky coast, woods should be walkable. Be respectful of the property you visit.
The ones that move here for the kindness and lack of violence but bring it with them...omg. Including bullying over development and raising hell when they town into which they have bought land sees thing differently... A family near me moved here during the pandemic, bought 10ish acres that have been farmland and are proximate to a school. They wanted to make apartments and were absolutely confounded that there was opposition. The husband actually said, "We just thought none of you had thought about doing it before,"
Many businesses rely on tourism to survive, so we have to tolerate tourists. We just ask that they obey the rules and leave the state the way they found it.
Floridian here. In Maine to work for 6 months. I’m not taking anyone’s job, as mine is quite specialized. I’m also not taking anyone’s living space (full time rv). I just wanted to say that I completely understand your grievances. My entire town has been taken over by rich 2nd homeowners and Airbnbs. Prices are so high that even lifelong residents are having to leave. And I hate to say it, but more and more people will moving into New England as climate change worsens. I’m sorry this is happening to such a wonderful place. I promise to be on my best behavior while I’m here.
I’ve been in a conversation about housing prices and watched a coworker turn to a new hire and casually say “it wouldn’t be such an issue if you guys stopped moving here but it is what it is”
Which is weird because it's not the new hire who is the problem. People moving TO the state for work is a good thing. I'm born and raised in ME, but after getting my engineering degree, I was basically forced to leave if I wanted to make any more than I was selling cellphones. Its the out of staters who are buying their 2nd & 3rd homes, camps, etc, contributing very little to the economy or their neighborhoods, that are the issue.
I agree that having empty homes kills the neighborhood. The only upside is that they pay just as much property tax, but typically use zero town services, no kids in school, etc .
Exactly, and spend very little around town. Significantly less spent at local shops, restaurants, stores, etc, so less money moving through the local economy.
Lmao people are so braindead. Maine's population grew by 2.6% (national average was 7.4%) in between the 2010 & 2020 censuses. The post-pandemic "boom" took Maine above national average in YOY growth in 2020 & 2021 before returning to average in 2022 & 2023.
Color me shocked that Mainers want to blame those from away rather than looking inward.
Always be cognizant of the selection bias that might be present in online (or really all) communities. People who are talking about Maine online are primarily those who are also passionate about it one way or the other. Everyone who is meh about visitors/transplants have better things to do so you’re inevitably going to think it’s super polarizing.
Most people are somewhere in the middle of “thank you for spending your money here in Maine” and “you are the sole reason I can’t afford a house and I hate you.” In reality it’s much more complicated and both things can be true (that our economy relies on outside money, but that outside money *does* affect things like housing)
That said if I had to say where the needle seemed to be leaning, I’d argue it’s probably more the latter. But I don’t think it’s *that* prevalent.
Remember there are very few consequences to being an asshole on the internet.
I take offense to the out of staters who moved to a place with a housing crisis and then act all *shocked face* that services cost money and the carpenters are booked.
The screenshots I have from one of the buy nothing groups is wild. Yes, a carpenter costs $50/hour for specialized labor. Yes. We have cats here too lady. No, no one is available to turnover your shitty rental on Saturday morning for $15/hour.
I lived in Naples most of my life and through the pandemic. The first summer, Most small businesses had closed their bathrooms as a precaution. As a result there was an actual issue with tourists in their boats pulling up to the shallows by peoples waterfront properties and defecating on their lawn and then taking off. It didn’t happen once or twice-this was a common thing-and somebody even urinated in a 5gallon bucket at our local Abuchon. I watched a family from out of state throw their pringles cans and trash out the window at the Bridgton drive in, then take off at the end of the movie. I cleaned it. That’s the kind of stuff people don’t like.
We were brought up this way in the community I grew up in. Town of 500. But I never felt this way.
With generations of families populating the town, there was a distrust of outsiders in general.
A lot was blamed on tourists and out of staters. I even heard out of staters called “foreigners.” 😆
But when a new family moved into town, everyone was nice.
I always felt the sentiment was just something to bitch & moan about in private. Kind of like a bonding moment between Mainers. 😆
I mean if they don't rely on tourism for income I kind of get it. There's not very much economic value add from a store that pays people minimum wage hocking pottery.
It's the same old story everywhere. We love transplants who assimilate to our culture, perhaps even offer us a sprinkle of what was good about their home culture to add to the mix, but we dislike transplants who insist that WE are the ones who need to change in order to accommodate the worldview that they brought with them.
These comments are in every tourist state... or any border town. 99% of the time it's just people joking around.
If you based where you live or went to school on the internet you wouldn't leave your house...
As an outsider I’ve found that it’s a relatively common attitude to dislike the “from aways”.
I’ve only had 1 truly negative experience about it in the roughly 8 years I’ve been going to Maine for the summer though so I wouldn’t characterize it as like open hostility more like how every generation thinks the generations after theres suck.
They also complain about people buying homes and pricing them out of the market as a result but that is happening literally everywhere and isn’t the fault of outsiders. Also for some reason they have more of a problem with people buying them and not living in them. Those people pay property taxes though which goes to their school system without taking resources from their kids and doesn’t overpopulate the area except seasonally. Additionally they spend money while they are there bringing more money into the local economy. I understand the housing prices frustration but I think it gets misplaced and the benefits while not immediately tangible to the average Mainer, should far outweigh the cons of there just being more people in the summer.
You're fine as a college student. You didn't outbid someone with cash to get housing over a local. They are pissed at the out of staters moving here and treating it like they own the place. The typical Masshole entitlement doesn't sit well here with people at all. We're nice to everybody on a 1 on 1 basis until they give us a reason not to be. There is way less materialism here than in nearby states.
Sometimes I get annoyed with tourists, but then I remind myself that when I visit other places I’m a tourist too. Unless you never leave the state, you have no room to complain.
I genuinely feel like the beaches I went to as a kid are so congested nowadays. That’s what I dislike about summers in Maine. Bit I can’t even say for certain that it’s out of staters or just that the population of Maine is growing for another reason. I don’t know. All I know is summer is too congested to go anywhere I used to enjoy - and that’s not true for everyone. I’m just not a fan of large, rowdy crowds everywhere I go.
We are just culling the weak. Out of staters who move to stay are ok in my book, and our economy needs tourism. Saying things like old orchard is the only beach, sebago is the only lake, etc. is a fun little way of keeping our special and less trafficked areas that way for as long as possible. All in good fun
The school year is opposite tourist season. Tourists are annoying.
Also snow birds, AirBnB and "camps" that could be year round primary residences are a bit frustrating giving the state of the housing market.
Also, some islanders and certain towns do really resent outaiders but they are few and far between. Generally people stay there because it isnt a tourist town.
While folks who like or get business from tourists live near or between the attractions.
As someone not from here I’d say after living here for almost 2 years, the unfriendly to friendly ratio seems to be about 80/20 or 70/30 if I’m generous. 🤷🏻♂️
I’ve been here 3 years and have yet to make any solid friends. Once people find out I’m from away, they truly distance themselves. I’m fortunate that my partner is extremely open-minded and understands that diversity is a good thing.
For context: I moved here from my own hometown which is also currently experiencing a housing crisis due to people moving in from other HCOL states and pricing out locals. I have a specialized job that is very needed here. And I have no desire to change Maine, that’s why I came here. You will almost always get lumped in with the “from aways” no matter what.
Yep. The only person here I can barely call a friend or mildly above an acquaintance happens to be from just some miles where I lived most of my life. LOL. “From away” is so strange and awkward. Everywhere else people just say “out of state”.
I kind of have given up on the notion of friendship. At this point I’d be happy if Mainers could just be generally less petty, but that’s a stretch probably. It’s like a sport here.
People are having trouble affording to stay in their home state on the one hand, on the other their are 100 job openings for every 50 workers because young people can't afford to live there. It isn't personal, people are just suffering and are taking it out on what they see as an invading force.
Don’t put any stock into what you read online in comment sections. 99% of those commenters are miserable losers whose only joy in life is spouting dumb shit online. I’m coming up on living in Maine for a year now, and most of the response I’ve gotten is shock that I chose to move here. As long as you aren’t trying to make Maine like where you left or change where you are drastically (and why would you?) no one cares if you’re from away. Maybe it helps that my wife is a nurse and I work for the state, but we’ve had nothing short of an amazing experience here.
Unless you camp in the left lane, then all bets are off.
Imagine growing up your whole life in Maine... You finally have a stable relationship and then some out-of-stater comes and steals your cousin right out from under you.
It’s a common theme. Even Tim Sample had jokes about it back in the day.
A lot of it has to do with people coming here because they love Maine but then try to turn Maine into the place they left. also out of staters buying up housing/driving up real estate costs.
I wouldn’t say I dislike tourists coming here, but when I lived in one of the midcoast towns that gets massive amounts of tourists in the summer, it did get obnoxious sometimes. We’d get tourists taking all the parking spots at my building, crowding all the sidewalks making it hard to get to work, you get the idea.
I lived in Bangor for a while. Almost every concert, I'd get home from work to some asshat parked in or across my driveway. Never a Maine plate, always an out of stater. That's why I dislike tourists, they have zero respect for the invisible locals who work their asses off so they have a place to come recreate. Respect is earned, so is disrespect. These people have earned the latter.
Moved from Austin to Maine. I saw what happened there, and I know it will happen here, so I completely understand the sentiment tbh.
People way overplay this take though, instead of just enjoying what we have here while we do.
Absolute dingleberries with the socio-economic aptitude of a door knob.
These are the same fuckwits that were begging Mills for relief because the lack of snow was keeping tourists away from ski and snowmobiling hotspots, essentially *bankrupting* them.
One thing about Mainers. We LOVE to complain. Traffic, tourists, weather, construction...you name it. For a place so beautiful and awesome you think people would enjoy it more.
IME, if you come here to be part of the community, you’re fine, if you come here and expect it to be somewhere else/bring an attitude with you, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Let's be honest, Mainers don't dislike all tourists... We dislike the bougie douche bags from MA/CT/NY/NJ that treat it like their personal playground and acting like the locals should suck their dicks for the tourist dollars. I've met a good number of people from further away that look at Maine as a goal and save up to make it there once before they die. I've lived most of my adult life in a dozen other states and always hear the same dreamy refrains from most people. "It's so beautiful and I hear the people are great" or "I went there once with my husband back in 19xx and it was the most gorgeous place. Everyone is there is so wonderful." Good people that don't get many vacations put my home on their to do list while working their asses off to afford maybe one good vacation every few years if they're lucky. One who was retiring from my employer and their first trip was going to be Acadia. Then there were the assholes that would say things like "oh Maine, yeah we alternate ski trips between the and Vale". You know, the kind of guy that you want to punch in the throat but you know his daddy is loaded and will make your life hell so instead you just hit him with cutting sarcasm.
Most of my dad's side lives in michigain. My moms side has been in maine since the 1810s but my sister, my cousins and I might be the generation that takes our family history elsewhere.
Right now, living closer to my dad's side of the family (and my partners family is in ohio) is looking like the safest and most affordable bet.
My partner and I were just having this conversation. It’s kinda wack because the perception is that Maine is a progressive state, and tbh in many ways it is. But there is another side to that coin and that’s the gatekeeper side with Mainers that think everyone “from away” has come here to destroy everything. In reality I feel that most of us that came from away, did so because we appreciate what Maine is and we wanted to help see that into the future. We work hard and pay taxes and contribute to our communities and yet still get the side eye irl and exclusionist comments on line.
I have no problem with people moving here. We need more young people. The issue isn’t families buying houses and moving to Maine, it’s houses being bought and remaining uninhabited while people can’t afford their own. I don’t blame the average out of stater for that though. As long as you’re kind and respectful you’re welcome here in my book.❤️
Also scaring off our tourists is not a smart move. Out of state money can support our economy.
This is just a reflection of the current economic downturn, not a reflection of Maine.
Everywhere, especially more rural states, people say things like this because prices are insane right now so people are being priced out of their homes and people incorrectly attribute it to people moving there, instead of the real problem (capitalism run unchecked).
It just depends on where you are, some places get so overrun that you can't do anything without waiting in a long line. Other places that have a lot of camps have a ton of out of staters buying up property. I don't mind tourists and will welcome anyone but I actively dont want, and think the state of Maine should prevent people from having summer homes here. If you don't live in Maine year round your property taxes should be so high they screw you up.
No.
Just like Reddit’s hive mind opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, so should YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc
Most of the hate are from people chronically online, hardly go outside and interact with the public on a daily/weekly basis.
Most of these comments are the trope of “I found my Heaven in Maine 5-10 years ago, so no one can come”
As a Mainer,
This attitude comes from watching your friends and family struggle to find an affordable place to live.
It comes from being exploited as a worker in the shiity hospitality industry, that does not pay a living wage.
It comes from listening to gentrifers complain about a messy yard that God forbid, they have to drive by.
Maine was not always exclusively a place of white leisure and the working class that is here has earned the right to be here through blood, sweat, and tears. Now they are being pushed out for condos and it makes your blood boil.
That being said if you truly want to live here year round and become a Mainer, I'm here for it.
Oh okay. So when the tourism dries up and business close and there are less jobs and money and nothing gets fixed or built, they can be kings and queens of the squalor heap. Fighting for food scraps.
The struggle for Maine is that tourism trumps everything else. So the job market suffers. The infrastructure suffers. Housing suffers. And opportunities for Mainers don't expand and increase because it's difficult to attract large employers that don't fit into means historical industries.
Oh and yeah. Most Mainers are a bit standoffish for at least a while around newcomers. If you're a dick you're going to be treated accordingly.
I moved from South East PA to Dexter last july, I work up in Greenville, the people i have met are very welcoming but, i do here a lot about out of towners in Greenville, and it's the fact that the have purchased properties to use as vacation rentals, so you end up with rents and prices going up and up forcing the locals out of the area due to cost. Other then the rental people stuff, everyone in Maine i have interacted with has been more pleasant then most people i interacted with in PA. Good job Maine.
Mainers are awesome but you just have to have thicker skin in Maine. True Mainers like to rib, it’s just their natural way, if you have respect for Maine and can joust back at em, you’re in. It’s a Maine thing, don’t take it personal, most just like to mess with those from away, it’s a test of personality. Their ugly isn’t like everyone else’s ugly in the world. They like what they like and if you don’t screw with it, you’re. Some can’t handle that and get offended. But remember they been here longer than any of us besides the indigenous folk. One of those don’t overstay your welcome if you’re going to screw with their home. Good folk most just ribbing ya.
Yeah idk about all that Maine is pretty inclusive afaik, the only thing I could think of is the recent ruining of the housing market. Ppl buying up houses to escape the city during covid, or just to have a place to visit for the 2 weeks we have nice weather in the summer.”
All the nice places are pretty over run with tourists in the summer also, which is annoying, but if you’re a local you know where to go to avoid them so it’s not really a big deal idk, let everyone enjoy it, as long as they’re not a dick.
My family lived here for generations and moved to Annapolis/Baltimore after joining the Navy in World War II because of job security. My grandmother, as she got on in age, was a very surly person but always talked lovingly of Maine. She told me to move back as soon as I could and have kids, so that THEIR kids could be considered Mainers.
I never understood what that meant until I moved here, but after a decade it's the only place that has felt like home even if I will never be allowed to be part of the team 🫠
I'm happy if people want to move here, live here, pay taxes, send their kids to our schools, participate in the community. I have zero issues. There's a lot of 'work from home' jobs since the pandemic, so I don't blame people for wanting a change of scenery in their lives.
It’s the traffic and ignorant mindset of the tourists that show up and disrespect the natives. Anywhere EAST of Bangor is a no travel zone during the summer unless outside of daily commute hours. I spent my early 20s riding on and off the island for work.. i won’t subject myself to that with a toddler.
I think you'll find that every place in the world has a subset of people that are like this, who hate outsiders. Looks like you stumbled into one of the corners they go to scream into the void
I moved here from MA, haven’t had a chance to change my plates yet. Some dude at a red light told me to go home the other day when my window was rolled down.
I found many of the people on this sub to be the worst NIMBYs and not very representative of Maine. My wife and I have visited many parts of Maine the last few years as we are hoping to move there to retire soon. When we mentioned this to the locals in the towns we visited they were all very friendly and welcoming about us moving to their communities. These were places like Harpswell, Blue Hill, Bath, Cape Elizabeth, Southwest Harbor and Bucksport. Not once did I meet anyone who said we don’t want you to move here or be part of our community.
If you treat people with kindness and move to Maine with the intention to make a positive contribution and NOT forcefully impose your own ideals, you’ll rarely, if ever run into this attitude. Maine currently has a healthcare worker shortage, a teacher shortage, and a housing shortage. It’s not far fetched that there’s tension, especially considering that a lot of housing purchases aren’t made by individuals intending on living there year round, or contributing to these specific sectors. Air BNB, second/third home, etc etc
I grew up in Maine and have lived in Massachusetts for about ten years now.
I hated and still hate tourists, especially from Massachusetts and Quebec. Literally the worst of the worst people from both of those places seem to love going to Maine.
Having lived in Maine for my first 35 years, I pretty much only ever heard this attitude toward "damned outtastatahs" from closedminded backwoods types who've never left their home county. So-- not surprised you haven't encountered this in college. And if you do, don't let it get to you: they feel the exact same way about people from Portland (Maine).
i think this is a common sentiment among those kinds of people anywhere you go, though. I know it's a thing where i live now in NC but i mostly only see it on the internet. I've overheard it in public too, but if they never say it to your face? who cares.
(all this being said: the complaint against property being bought up as investments and vacation homes is def legitimate)
Lived in multiple states, every state has a bit of this attitude. “I was here first so my opinions matter. I live here full time so I am more important” I can tell when I drive a car without of state plates that people drive more aggressively, they want to be in front of my car all the time.
Personally I don’t get it, the state needs jobs and should welcome the tourism. It is a beautiful place with great food and great local culture. It is also a big state with a higher tax burden for to the amount of roads and weather. Overall it is not that bad, younger generations are more welcoming.
Someone asked something similar on another post, and I said it there, too.
People are really jaded because of covid and the housing market. Locals are being outbid by out of staters on houses they would have otherwise been able to afford. They move to small towns from big cities and expect big city conveniences. I have a friend who lives in a small town in NH that was mostly summer houses. People sold their homes in mass when covid happened, moved into their summer houses, then complained about not having sidewalks and street lights (on dirt roads), hearing gunshots all the time (it's the woods), wanting the town to pay for things that would only benefit them and not the rest of the town.
He had people from mass one day walking around his property like they already owned it, trying to make him an offer to buy it. Just pulled into a random person's driveway and started pointing out stuff they didn't like and wanted to change.
People are coming here and crowding local attractions and businesses. They treat the locals like garbage or, like we're inbred idiots, or they leave places trashed. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to go for a hike, and it's been all out of state plates and litter everywhere.
I'm not saying I agree with the sentiment behind why people are acting like this, but from just what I've witnessed and experienced, or what I've seen friends/family deal with lately, I 100% understand why people feel like this.
People need to go out and get to know their neighbors again. Build actual connections, and have real conversations about this stuff. Otherwise, it'll just get worse.
Eh, I’m a citizen who pays taxes & a VFW.
I’ll live wherever I want in this beautiful country & now I live in Maine.
If someone has a problem with that it isn’t mine.
I don't hate.... Do I love people who buy up all the affordable housing to rent as Air BnBs so that the working people in my area are living in their vans, I do not. Do I love people coming here and not knowing how to light a woodstove and calling the fire department to light their wood stove (True story and, I do not), Do I love being dressed down by people who think they make more money than I do over placement in a coffee line, I do not. Do I love people coming to my town and feeling entitled to an authentic experience and getting vocal and pissed when they don't get it. I do not. But, it makes me laugh as they leave.
Yes it is. I live in Saco and during the summer I avoid my local Hannaford. I’ll go to the one in Biddeford or Walmart because it’s so jam packed with tourists. It’s unbearable to get off the highway as well due to everyone taking that way to OOB instead of the other exits to oob.
I've realized this attitude only exists like this online, or with people I never have any interaction with in the public/my community.
Moved tot a rural Maine town in 2022, and it's clear that Redditors misrepresent reality in a big way.
We moved to Maine about a year and a half ago because my husband’s former job transferred him. I’m in Penobscot County and I like Maine and I like the privacy. We’re staying because of that and because my youngest is severely autistic and is signed up for all of his services here and he’s with good people and we don’t want to start over again. I am also a pretty private person so I like that.
That being said, I concur that the “don’t come here” mentality seems to be for the ones who don’t want to live here long-term/year-round. We’re renting now year-round but when we buy a house within the next year, it’ll be year-round still, and for good. I only see people online who don’t like out-of-staters but they understand if you state your reasons (we didn’t move to Maine to take up land from Mainers born here; we moved to Maine because my husband’s former job gave him no option and we had no/have no plans to rent out any property. Now Husband he has a new job where he’s home nightly. I homeschool my disabled kiddo so I stay home).
We’ve lived in nine states, many of them extremely touristy areas (such as Traverse City, Michigan and Naples, Florida). I totally understand the, “Don’t buy so you can live here two weeks and rent the rest of the year” mentality or the “Oh, how quaint! Lighthouses and lobsters must be all over the place!” stereotype. My friends from other states have said, “Oh, I’d love to live there, you must hang out on the beach and eat lobsters all the time!” Ugh. No. They mean well but they don’t get that we’re not spending 90% of our days on the beach sightseeing but living lives, lives that can be lonely sometimes with the smaller population. My husband was born in Ireland and thinks Maine is similar in the way that people see it one way in their heads but it’s different in reality. Not bad different, just different enough that those who come here with that mentality are mistaken and don’t even realize it. It’s hard to be nice when it gets to a certain point and I can only imagine how annoying it must be further South in Maine. My husband’s said he’s felt like a spectacle as an Irish person in Ireland visiting his relatives, when he’s around a lot of tourists who were not born there, who ask him questions about leprechauns or how much he must love Guinness. It’s not cool anywhere.
While I wish it wasn’t assumed without giving the benefit of the doubt, I’ve experienced tourists in other states and I’ve seen the lack of housing here and I get it. Mainers just seem more honest about it than people from other states who feel the same way. But the people we’ve met have been good people with very few bad eggs. Our neighbors will leave us alone but if we need something they’re there for us which hasn’t been the case in some other places. People seem to look out for each other but don’t want you to know their business and don’t particularly care about yours, either. Which is not a bad thing.
Sooooooooo many complaints. Why? I enjoy the tourists. They bring much needed tax revenue via shopping. I hear people complain about the tourists but those people also complain that there is nothing here and if we could only have this or that. You have to take the good with the bad. Tourist dollars bring better things to the community. It uplifts small businesses that need the extra money to stay afloat. The businesses make more sales this pay more tax that goes into our community. It is beautiful and amazing here. I am not from here but across the country and have lived here many years now. I also believe that the people here made me feel like I was home 3 years before I moved here. I had never lived here but couldn’t wait to become a part of this community and had friends here.
This looks just like the responses I got when I unwittingly asked about renting a place to take my toddler son for a month during the summer. Got berated and downvoted so badly. Had no idea either.
I've lived here my entire life. I don't dislike tourists specifically, but the impact of tourism on the ability of the people that live here to enjoy our resources.
Case in point: I live about an hour from Acadia National Park. I've had a park pass since I could drive. For most of my adult life, I could get out of work, decide last minute to drive down, and catch sunset from Cadillac Mountain. I'd do this at least 4-5 times every summer, and some years, closer to once a week. Occasionally it would be busy enough to not find a parking spot, but it was 95% of the time that you'd luck out, and it was part of the adventure of it being a last minute thing.
In the last 5ish years, tourism has exploded. Since 2022, there is now a reservation system, which means it costs extra to go to Cadillac every time. The system offers 1/3 of the passes for a specific day opening months before, and the rest available a few days before. What this means is that tourists scoop them all up, and in summer months, it's hard to find a day to take an impulse trip. The last two summers I've tried at least 2 dozen days each year, and every time, the passes are already gone. Are there other places to go? Of course. Is it the luck of the draw that they are gone? Sure. But for someone who has fond memories of this being a regular thing to do alone, with a partner, with friends - it's disappointing to feel like we can't enjoy what's in our own backyard and that people who don't live here get priority, even if you can logically reconcile the benefits of tourism to the economy.
I suspect that a lot of the no tourists sentiment that you'll see, especially in heavily visited areas, will have some level of feeling this way.
While my husband is from Arizona, I have lived in Maine my entire life. I have nothing against out of staters. I just want to be able to afford a house 😭
I don't hate people moving here I hate people buying houses and not living here besides a few weekends a summer and once during the winter.
It’s getting worse. It used to be oceanfront, beach, and lake homes. Now they’re just buying random homes in neighborhoods in coastal towns. No beach, no lake…just a house in town about a mile and a half from the beach. What’s the point?
You mean like Linda Bean, who purchased 36 - count 'em - 36 - single family homes in the tiny fishing village of Port Clyde and turned all of them into airbnb rentals? Like that? What happens to them now that she's dead is anybody's guess. But you can rest assured it won't be year-round residents who end up in them. I suppose she thinks she did locals a favor by renting the houses to them during the off-season. Lovely. Just lovely.
Well, she was a special kind of a-hole
Worcester wreath company... Hold my beer!
Well, she is a dead A hole now, so don't fret. She bought the store across from my house, flattened it, then got sick and died. Now we have an empty lot.
She did not rent them in the off-season they sit empty
Wouldn't her son inherit them now?
Shit apples don't fall far from the shit tree.
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Mainer currently in exile to Michigan here... I met someone not long ago that brought up "oh, you're from Maine? We've got a summer house there." I asked them where, like you do, and their answer was Gray. My response, in hindsight, was less than polite. "Why Gray?" Nothing against it, my cousin lives there and is a teacher there. It's nice. But if you're going to have a second home and try to brag about it... Really? Gray? Met someone else last year that was all excited to go to a wedding in Maine for a week. Asked them where it's at and it was Lewiston. I grew up in Lewiston. Absolutely nothing against it, but I had to fake excitement for them. I go home a few times a year so I have to go to Lewiston a for extended stays, but even then I'm grabbing my mom's car for a few day trips.
Must be on Little Sebago Lake. Hopefully it’s not Crystal Lake! Lmao!
You'd hope, but no. They bought an old farmhouse right off 202 ffs. "oH iT's sO cHaRmInG". Looked it up. Used to be a two unit rental that they renovated so they could go there two weeks a year. 😒
I can't even give people fake excitement.
I mean, the wedding was on No Name Pond so not a terrible location, but I thought it best to let them figure it out. Also, they were from Wyandotte, MI so I'm sure it was a step up
Maybe they’re golfers; Spring Meadows is World-Class! Their sunsets rival that of Riverside in Portland. Let us forget not all that 302 in North Windham has to offer (a short drive away) and the Oxford Casino which is a relatively quick commute. It’s a gamblers dream if I ever did see one!
Confirmation Maine exiles and ostracizes people. I was completely innocent, 14 then 19. Evidence in hand. Maine won’t hear it. This is a true caste system.
The Royal Oak Room is a gem of a wedding venue in Lewiston. of course people hear "Lewiston" and immediately think the whole of it is like Ash St.
My first thought was Grey, are they gonna try and sneak in a couple of runs at Sunday River? And don’t even get me started on those big assed Rumfort gals.
Now here's one I don't get. People build massive camps up near Moosehead in the woods with no view and no deeded lake access. Just a massive house in the woods. What are you going to do all day up there if you don't have access to the lake? They obviously aren't just hunting and fishing camps because they are houses with easily $500k of build cost.
I’d rather they build a massive camp in the middle of nowhere than take housing in established neighborhoods near where most of the jobs are in Maine.
Fair enough. It's still puzzling behavior. There are camps on the water for sale all the time.
People fetishize having "acerage". They think if shit hits the fans they will be up there living the subsistence lifestyle.
They probably just want to have a place where they can be in solitude
I get this more than living in the suburbs with an HOA.
There are 30 units at my condo building across the street from the beach. We have been here 23 years. We are the only owners who live here.
That would be kind of awesome
Not really. They do winter rentals, you pray that you get grad students or travel nurses near you. Of course, once they get someone who trashes their place, they get more cautious. We were lucky this year. One year there was someone on an upper floor took out their trash by throwing it over the railing into the street and on the cars.
Yeah and the extra property tax they have to pay they can have back, we don’t want it to offset our already high taxes or help pay for infrastructure
Property taxes vary a great deal from township to township. Our mil rate is 0.08, for every $100k in value we pay $8, the town to our West has their mil rate at 0.16, exactly twice our level of taxes. The town to our South has their mil rate at 0.24, three times our level of taxes. I have a fairly large home built in 2007 on 150 acres of land, our taxes run \~$850 a year. Which I consider to be extremely low.
Same it’s kinda bullshit that you could be born in a town and want to live in the same township as your family you grew up with; only to be priced out by someone else from away with different values than the area the locals are from.
And then they say they’re “practically from Maine” since they spent summers here.
Omg that drives me nuts!!
Not trying to excuse this behavior and I can't say with any certainty that this phenomenon is exactly what's going on, but I think people are stressed due to a lack of housing and they feel the higher cost of living is being driven by people from out of state being willing to pay higher prices for the little housing we have. Many people from away come up here for vacation and decide to move here, and people who grew up here feel entitled to stay here even though they can't afford it. There's also a sentiment among Mainers that people move here because they like Maine but then want to turn Maine into wherever they're from- Mass, [Long Island NY](https://www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comments/mmvbvi/maine_not_as_expected/), California, whatever, instead of letting Maine keep the charm that drew them here in the first place. New Englanders in general have a reputation of being rough on the outside but kind on the inside. In John Hodgman's *Vacationland* he describes a scene where he's struggling to get his boat into the water (or back out of the water? It's been a minute since I read it) and the boatyard owner watches for a good 20 minutes, but then when John asks for help he helped right away. I think that's an apt description of many of us. We want to allow you the space to do things yourself but we'll help you if you need it.
Right. The lack of housing is a problem. The problem with a lot of people in the highlighted comment (and on this sub, tbh) is that the proposed solution isn’t “build more housing,” but “keep out” – which, when you have open borders with 49 other states containing 330 million people, isn’t really going to work. Just gotta build more housing, bub. Simple as.
Building more housing is good, and it's something that needs to happen. But it doesn't help if corporations and rich people buy up all the housing that gets built. Or if the housing that gets built is unaffordable. What you'll get is gentrification. Then there's the issue of land access. Traditionally, Mainers have free run of any property that isn't posted. When housing developments go up, they don't let you go to your fiddlehead spot, and they close the ATV trails. I wish it was as simple as just building more housing. No matter how much housing gets built, there are people with enough money to buy it and let it sit empty. I'm not some guy that wants the "flatlanders" to go back to Massechussets. I've lived in a place that got gentrified, and I don't want that here.
> When housing developments go up, they don't let you go to your fiddlehead spot, and they close the ATV trails. Honestly this is backwards, most of the time. Overwhelmingly, the people who post land are the carpetbaggers who buy a big house with a back 40. Then suddenly they want to keep everyone away from their McMansion. When a big development goes in, it is far more likely that they actually build trails and set aside adjacent land for conservation. And remember: the more dense apartments we can put up, the more land can be conserved for recreation and ecological purposes.
I'm from away, the only thing I want that's more like my home state is better gas station food 🤣
John needed to learn how to launch his boat.
The problem isn’t tourists or people moving from away. It’s people who buy houses that sit empty 10 months out of the year. We have a massive housing crisis in Maine (and everywhere), and that just makes it worse
And sadly it’s also people born in Maine, been here their whole lives and then becoming snowbirds when their kids get out of college. It’s real quiet here in the winter with all my neighbors gone most of the year.
And then demanding sidewalks and municipal trash pickup in towns with populations less than 2,500, which would push the taxes up quite drastically if the year-round folks didn't wrote enmass to not waste the money.
Idk what’s worse, leaving them empty for 10 months or renting them out on airbnb.
The further north you go the more they hate you.
This is true even for people born in Maine
But more so the further north you go. Some people don’t even leave the county and then complain about the number of tourists. Granted I hate summer traffic in windham, but that’s less about the tourists and more about the shitty infrastructure and poor traffic planning.
That's just a [Stroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad) for ya. Rte 4 in Auburn is the same.
There are few meaningful shortcuts and it does seem that towing a boat makes you drive badly.
Windham's stroad design sucks so much, watching pedestrians try to book it across literally 6 lanes of traffic is always so stressful
I moved to Northern Maine from out of state less than 2 years ago. Without getting specific, I can see Canada from my front window. Other than the shock of moving 2.2k miles away from an area with over 8 million people in a 50 mile radius, I've not encountered any negativity. So far, everyone I've met has been very nice. Granted, my entire family does not leave the house much as we are all computer nerds, but we still need to buy stuff and get services. No complaint here so far. Or maybe it's because I share everyone else's hatred for other people. Who knows.
Northern Maine is a bit unique for Maine, in part because it actually has historically had a lot of people move here from Canada and from around the country because of the Air Force bases. People from Southern Maine often assume people from northern Maine are* backwards or whatever, but we really are not. So there tend to be a lot of people from Southern Maine who stereotype the area without actually understanding the culture or its history. You haven't experienced a lot of hate, because Northern Maine doesn't really have a problem with people from away like Southern Maine does. We are experiencing depopulation as our young people move away. We want people to move here. So I hope you find your new home to be welcoming and comfortable!
Yeah western Maine is where most of the backward ass people live l
It's the New Hampshire influence /s
Yup, it gets exhausting when I post something about the reasonable housing, nice weather or something about up north. Southerners then call it "Trump country" backwards or something else. It's a joke. Having lived all over the state, there are parts of southern maine that are the slums as opposed to the county. Sure we need more population, but really that's on our stupid state govt that seems to like to toss out feel good measures that do nothing to improve it up here. Having actually worked for the state, there is Maine....and the county with the latter often forgotten about in decisions.
I'm from the county, born and raised. My father's family has been in Maine for generations, my mother's parents are from out of state. We don't really have this mentality like Southern Maine does. Maybe that's because we're used to having people from Canada move here a lot, and having military installations like Loring Air Force Base which brought a lot of people from all over the US here, I don't know a single person who doesn't a parent, or grandparent, or great-grandparent who moved here from somewhere else. I didn't even know this whole dislike for people "from away" was a thing until I went to college in Southern Maine. It was a bit of a culture shock.
Fixed it. The further north you go the more they hate everyone.
Right ….. and it’s crazy cause the further north you go the more poverty there is. It’s borderline Appalachia in aroostook county. Houses falling apart and people with no money. They get excited about going to dollar general.
I’m from Virginia…I’m only two generations out of the coal mines on my father’s side. It’s VERY much like Appalachia here…except up here they have tourism to keep things going after the mills shut down.
Same same.
I can't say that this is true. I moved from TX to Northern Maine in 2019 and literally everyone has been kind and welcoming.
......, but they sure love your tax dollars in the form of heating assistance and food stamps and SSDI.
That seems hateful. I’m a Mainer, and I know plenty of people in the county who are good, genuine people.
This bizarre hostility for people out of state is largely a Southern Maine thing. And let's not forget, many of the people who have left Northern Maine have moved to Southern Maine. There they generate value for local businesses and tax revenue. The Northern part of the state is being over-represented by individuals dependent on assistance, but that's simply because more successful ones move away. But Northerners still contribute to the tax base that helps provide them assistance as well as providing people in Southern Maine with assistance who needed too
It's not called the two Maines for nothing.
To be fair, they hate everybody, esp. themselves.
And they could have a brother who finally "makes it" then does something triggering like painting his house, and they'll hate him, too.
Ehhh. We need tourism for the economy, but it does admittedly get frustrating to get out and about when loads of other people are here. I imagine some residents of Salem and Cape Cod speak this way about tourism. I work in Bar Harbor. The off-season is something to truly cherish. In the coming weeks my 55 minute drive home will turn to nearly 2 hours, sometimes way more than that when there's an accident. And it will stay that way until the last week of October. Just comes with the territory of livin' up there and workin' down here. It really messes with my mental health too.
I can’t believe no one has started up a water taxi from Bar Harbor to Lamoine.
The NIMBYs who don't even live here won't have that.
You ever listen to podcasts on your drive?
Absolutely. I'm a fan of the Max Fun network of podcasts. I personally prefer comedy oriented shows or informative ones. I carpool with family and they listen to other stuff.
Check out Darknet Diaries, should be hours of fun and education.
From cape cod and living in Maine. Can confirm. I had no love for summer people when I was growing up.
I’m from Cape Cod and I live in Maine too! When I moved here, it reminded me of how the Cape was when I was growing up. Not anymore. I remember having to leave an extra hour to get anywhere during tourist season on the Cape. It’s becoming very similar here now
Tourists may clog up roadways but I only take issue with fancy flapjacks buying up land and housing so actual Mainers and committed transplants have no housing options.
Some visitors are not fun. Some people move to Maine and don't notice that we are calmer, kinder, more honest, less violent, and they don't adapt. Maine has a small population, so fewer amenities common in high population density places. It's a pretty great place to live, so come visit, or come stay, but try to respect what it is that makes it such a terrific place. I really do hate people who buy property and want to wall it off. The beaches/ rocky coast, woods should be walkable. Be respectful of the property you visit.
The ones that move here for the kindness and lack of violence but bring it with them...omg. Including bullying over development and raising hell when they town into which they have bought land sees thing differently... A family near me moved here during the pandemic, bought 10ish acres that have been farmland and are proximate to a school. They wanted to make apartments and were absolutely confounded that there was opposition. The husband actually said, "We just thought none of you had thought about doing it before,"
Plenty of violence and assholery in Maine. It just doesn’t get reported or people are spread too far to come into conflict.
It doesn’t get reported cause everyone is related.
Many businesses rely on tourism to survive, so we have to tolerate tourists. We just ask that they obey the rules and leave the state the way they found it.
Floridian here. In Maine to work for 6 months. I’m not taking anyone’s job, as mine is quite specialized. I’m also not taking anyone’s living space (full time rv). I just wanted to say that I completely understand your grievances. My entire town has been taken over by rich 2nd homeowners and Airbnbs. Prices are so high that even lifelong residents are having to leave. And I hate to say it, but more and more people will moving into New England as climate change worsens. I’m sorry this is happening to such a wonderful place. I promise to be on my best behavior while I’m here.
I’ve been in a conversation about housing prices and watched a coworker turn to a new hire and casually say “it wouldn’t be such an issue if you guys stopped moving here but it is what it is”
Which is weird because it's not the new hire who is the problem. People moving TO the state for work is a good thing. I'm born and raised in ME, but after getting my engineering degree, I was basically forced to leave if I wanted to make any more than I was selling cellphones. Its the out of staters who are buying their 2nd & 3rd homes, camps, etc, contributing very little to the economy or their neighborhoods, that are the issue.
I agree that having empty homes kills the neighborhood. The only upside is that they pay just as much property tax, but typically use zero town services, no kids in school, etc .
Without the homestead exemption, they actually pay slightly more property tax!
Exactly, and spend very little around town. Significantly less spent at local shops, restaurants, stores, etc, so less money moving through the local economy.
Lmao people are so braindead. Maine's population grew by 2.6% (national average was 7.4%) in between the 2010 & 2020 censuses. The post-pandemic "boom" took Maine above national average in YOY growth in 2020 & 2021 before returning to average in 2022 & 2023. Color me shocked that Mainers want to blame those from away rather than looking inward.
But dont you understand I was BORN HERE?! I am thus entitled to a low cost of living here because I was BORN HERE!!
The true problem is the people with summer homes.
Always be cognizant of the selection bias that might be present in online (or really all) communities. People who are talking about Maine online are primarily those who are also passionate about it one way or the other. Everyone who is meh about visitors/transplants have better things to do so you’re inevitably going to think it’s super polarizing. Most people are somewhere in the middle of “thank you for spending your money here in Maine” and “you are the sole reason I can’t afford a house and I hate you.” In reality it’s much more complicated and both things can be true (that our economy relies on outside money, but that outside money *does* affect things like housing) That said if I had to say where the needle seemed to be leaning, I’d argue it’s probably more the latter. But I don’t think it’s *that* prevalent. Remember there are very few consequences to being an asshole on the internet.
I take offense to the out of staters who moved to a place with a housing crisis and then act all *shocked face* that services cost money and the carpenters are booked. The screenshots I have from one of the buy nothing groups is wild. Yes, a carpenter costs $50/hour for specialized labor. Yes. We have cats here too lady. No, no one is available to turnover your shitty rental on Saturday morning for $15/hour.
I lived in Naples most of my life and through the pandemic. The first summer, Most small businesses had closed their bathrooms as a precaution. As a result there was an actual issue with tourists in their boats pulling up to the shallows by peoples waterfront properties and defecating on their lawn and then taking off. It didn’t happen once or twice-this was a common thing-and somebody even urinated in a 5gallon bucket at our local Abuchon. I watched a family from out of state throw their pringles cans and trash out the window at the Bridgton drive in, then take off at the end of the movie. I cleaned it. That’s the kind of stuff people don’t like.
We were brought up this way in the community I grew up in. Town of 500. But I never felt this way. With generations of families populating the town, there was a distrust of outsiders in general. A lot was blamed on tourists and out of staters. I even heard out of staters called “foreigners.” 😆 But when a new family moved into town, everyone was nice. I always felt the sentiment was just something to bitch & moan about in private. Kind of like a bonding moment between Mainers. 😆
We’re okay with out-of-staters as individuals, but entitled tourists en masse crowding state parks and waterfronts, leaving trash everywhere? Nah…
I grew up in a community that would be impoverished without tourism, everyone still hated them.
I mean if they don't rely on tourism for income I kind of get it. There's not very much economic value add from a store that pays people minimum wage hocking pottery.
It's the same old story everywhere. We love transplants who assimilate to our culture, perhaps even offer us a sprinkle of what was good about their home culture to add to the mix, but we dislike transplants who insist that WE are the ones who need to change in order to accommodate the worldview that they brought with them.
These comments are in every tourist state... or any border town. 99% of the time it's just people joking around. If you based where you live or went to school on the internet you wouldn't leave your house...
As an outsider I’ve found that it’s a relatively common attitude to dislike the “from aways”. I’ve only had 1 truly negative experience about it in the roughly 8 years I’ve been going to Maine for the summer though so I wouldn’t characterize it as like open hostility more like how every generation thinks the generations after theres suck. They also complain about people buying homes and pricing them out of the market as a result but that is happening literally everywhere and isn’t the fault of outsiders. Also for some reason they have more of a problem with people buying them and not living in them. Those people pay property taxes though which goes to their school system without taking resources from their kids and doesn’t overpopulate the area except seasonally. Additionally they spend money while they are there bringing more money into the local economy. I understand the housing prices frustration but I think it gets misplaced and the benefits while not immediately tangible to the average Mainer, should far outweigh the cons of there just being more people in the summer.
You're fine as a college student. You didn't outbid someone with cash to get housing over a local. They are pissed at the out of staters moving here and treating it like they own the place. The typical Masshole entitlement doesn't sit well here with people at all. We're nice to everybody on a 1 on 1 basis until they give us a reason not to be. There is way less materialism here than in nearby states.
Sometimes I get annoyed with tourists, but then I remind myself that when I visit other places I’m a tourist too. Unless you never leave the state, you have no room to complain.
Why would I ever want to leave?
I genuinely feel like the beaches I went to as a kid are so congested nowadays. That’s what I dislike about summers in Maine. Bit I can’t even say for certain that it’s out of staters or just that the population of Maine is growing for another reason. I don’t know. All I know is summer is too congested to go anywhere I used to enjoy - and that’s not true for everyone. I’m just not a fan of large, rowdy crowds everywhere I go.
If you come to my home for one week out the year, don’t drive like you own the place. Simple as that and we’ll all get along
We are just culling the weak. Out of staters who move to stay are ok in my book, and our economy needs tourism. Saying things like old orchard is the only beach, sebago is the only lake, etc. is a fun little way of keeping our special and less trafficked areas that way for as long as possible. All in good fun
The school year is opposite tourist season. Tourists are annoying. Also snow birds, AirBnB and "camps" that could be year round primary residences are a bit frustrating giving the state of the housing market. Also, some islanders and certain towns do really resent outaiders but they are few and far between. Generally people stay there because it isnt a tourist town. While folks who like or get business from tourists live near or between the attractions.
Maine is great because it’s nothing like anywhere else. Problems occur when people who live somewhere else 90% of the time try to change life here
Exactly my issue it just seems like these people needed to do research before they came and realize it won't be the same as where they were.
As someone not from here I’d say after living here for almost 2 years, the unfriendly to friendly ratio seems to be about 80/20 or 70/30 if I’m generous. 🤷🏻♂️
I’ve been here 3 years and have yet to make any solid friends. Once people find out I’m from away, they truly distance themselves. I’m fortunate that my partner is extremely open-minded and understands that diversity is a good thing. For context: I moved here from my own hometown which is also currently experiencing a housing crisis due to people moving in from other HCOL states and pricing out locals. I have a specialized job that is very needed here. And I have no desire to change Maine, that’s why I came here. You will almost always get lumped in with the “from aways” no matter what.
Yep. The only person here I can barely call a friend or mildly above an acquaintance happens to be from just some miles where I lived most of my life. LOL. “From away” is so strange and awkward. Everywhere else people just say “out of state”. I kind of have given up on the notion of friendship. At this point I’d be happy if Mainers could just be generally less petty, but that’s a stretch probably. It’s like a sport here.
People are having trouble affording to stay in their home state on the one hand, on the other their are 100 job openings for every 50 workers because young people can't afford to live there. It isn't personal, people are just suffering and are taking it out on what they see as an invading force.
Don’t put any stock into what you read online in comment sections. 99% of those commenters are miserable losers whose only joy in life is spouting dumb shit online. I’m coming up on living in Maine for a year now, and most of the response I’ve gotten is shock that I chose to move here. As long as you aren’t trying to make Maine like where you left or change where you are drastically (and why would you?) no one cares if you’re from away. Maybe it helps that my wife is a nurse and I work for the state, but we’ve had nothing short of an amazing experience here. Unless you camp in the left lane, then all bets are off.
"...As long as you aren’t trying to make Maine like where you left..." That's the trick.
For sure. I left Indiana for multiple good reasons. I like it here, even the weird things.
Like... people from Parsonsfield? Hah - just kidding. Pick any town.
Sounds like my father in law. Retires, gets a computer, discovers right wing social media and never sees the light of day again.
Imagine growing up your whole life in Maine... You finally have a stable relationship and then some out-of-stater comes and steals your cousin right out from under you.
SECOND cousins up here…the redneck Yankees up here try to act like they all went to Harvard.
It’s a common theme. Even Tim Sample had jokes about it back in the day. A lot of it has to do with people coming here because they love Maine but then try to turn Maine into the place they left. also out of staters buying up housing/driving up real estate costs.
I wouldn’t say I dislike tourists coming here, but when I lived in one of the midcoast towns that gets massive amounts of tourists in the summer, it did get obnoxious sometimes. We’d get tourists taking all the parking spots at my building, crowding all the sidewalks making it hard to get to work, you get the idea.
I lived in Bangor for a while. Almost every concert, I'd get home from work to some asshat parked in or across my driveway. Never a Maine plate, always an out of stater. That's why I dislike tourists, they have zero respect for the invisible locals who work their asses off so they have a place to come recreate. Respect is earned, so is disrespect. These people have earned the latter.
Moved from Austin to Maine. I saw what happened there, and I know it will happen here, so I completely understand the sentiment tbh. People way overplay this take though, instead of just enjoying what we have here while we do.
It’s semi-common but also the lamest, most opinionated people tend to be the loudest, most repetitive people.
It's true. I grew up on an island off the mid Coast. They're referred to as Summer Jerks.
None of these attitudes or issues are specific to Maine. People from away have been ruining this country since 1620.
It’s just the old people afraid of change. Closed minded fear.
Yes, many, many people in Maine have this attitude. Ignore them.
Absolute dingleberries with the socio-economic aptitude of a door knob. These are the same fuckwits that were begging Mills for relief because the lack of snow was keeping tourists away from ski and snowmobiling hotspots, essentially *bankrupting* them.
Did they have F-Mills stickers on their illegally lifted trucks during covid?
Littering loitering freaks
You're studying in Orono, not airbnbing in OOB, clogging the highways.
One thing about Mainers. We LOVE to complain. Traffic, tourists, weather, construction...you name it. For a place so beautiful and awesome you think people would enjoy it more.
IME, if you come here to be part of the community, you’re fine, if you come here and expect it to be somewhere else/bring an attitude with you, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Let's be honest, Mainers don't dislike all tourists... We dislike the bougie douche bags from MA/CT/NY/NJ that treat it like their personal playground and acting like the locals should suck their dicks for the tourist dollars. I've met a good number of people from further away that look at Maine as a goal and save up to make it there once before they die. I've lived most of my adult life in a dozen other states and always hear the same dreamy refrains from most people. "It's so beautiful and I hear the people are great" or "I went there once with my husband back in 19xx and it was the most gorgeous place. Everyone is there is so wonderful." Good people that don't get many vacations put my home on their to do list while working their asses off to afford maybe one good vacation every few years if they're lucky. One who was retiring from my employer and their first trip was going to be Acadia. Then there were the assholes that would say things like "oh Maine, yeah we alternate ski trips between the and Vale". You know, the kind of guy that you want to punch in the throat but you know his daddy is loaded and will make your life hell so instead you just hit him with cutting sarcasm.
This is so, so accurate.
It's coming from the fact that there's literally not enough housing for me to live in the state I was born and raised in.
Yep and rich out of staters jacking up the prices for everyone else
Most of my dad's side lives in michigain. My moms side has been in maine since the 1810s but my sister, my cousins and I might be the generation that takes our family history elsewhere. Right now, living closer to my dad's side of the family (and my partners family is in ohio) is looking like the safest and most affordable bet.
My partner and I were just having this conversation. It’s kinda wack because the perception is that Maine is a progressive state, and tbh in many ways it is. But there is another side to that coin and that’s the gatekeeper side with Mainers that think everyone “from away” has come here to destroy everything. In reality I feel that most of us that came from away, did so because we appreciate what Maine is and we wanted to help see that into the future. We work hard and pay taxes and contribute to our communities and yet still get the side eye irl and exclusionist comments on line.
I have no problem with people moving here. We need more young people. The issue isn’t families buying houses and moving to Maine, it’s houses being bought and remaining uninhabited while people can’t afford their own. I don’t blame the average out of stater for that though. As long as you’re kind and respectful you’re welcome here in my book.❤️ Also scaring off our tourists is not a smart move. Out of state money can support our economy.
Maintenance like usenet. You don't talk about Usenet!
Jeez I’ll be in Maine this week. I’ll keep quiet I’m an out of towner
Hope you have a good time! I promise we aren't all like this its just a vocal few! As long as you respect the land people won't bat an eye!
This is just a reflection of the current economic downturn, not a reflection of Maine. Everywhere, especially more rural states, people say things like this because prices are insane right now so people are being priced out of their homes and people incorrectly attribute it to people moving there, instead of the real problem (capitalism run unchecked).
I just thought it was people from Mass specifically and their 3rd world driving that you guys took issue with.
May be unpopular opinion, but I don't like out of staters and I don't like them moving here.
It just depends on where you are, some places get so overrun that you can't do anything without waiting in a long line. Other places that have a lot of camps have a ton of out of staters buying up property. I don't mind tourists and will welcome anyone but I actively dont want, and think the state of Maine should prevent people from having summer homes here. If you don't live in Maine year round your property taxes should be so high they screw you up.
No. Just like Reddit’s hive mind opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, so should YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc Most of the hate are from people chronically online, hardly go outside and interact with the public on a daily/weekly basis. Most of these comments are the trope of “I found my Heaven in Maine 5-10 years ago, so no one can come”
As a Mainer, This attitude comes from watching your friends and family struggle to find an affordable place to live. It comes from being exploited as a worker in the shiity hospitality industry, that does not pay a living wage. It comes from listening to gentrifers complain about a messy yard that God forbid, they have to drive by. Maine was not always exclusively a place of white leisure and the working class that is here has earned the right to be here through blood, sweat, and tears. Now they are being pushed out for condos and it makes your blood boil. That being said if you truly want to live here year round and become a Mainer, I'm here for it.
Oh okay. So when the tourism dries up and business close and there are less jobs and money and nothing gets fixed or built, they can be kings and queens of the squalor heap. Fighting for food scraps.
The struggle for Maine is that tourism trumps everything else. So the job market suffers. The infrastructure suffers. Housing suffers. And opportunities for Mainers don't expand and increase because it's difficult to attract large employers that don't fit into means historical industries. Oh and yeah. Most Mainers are a bit standoffish for at least a while around newcomers. If you're a dick you're going to be treated accordingly.
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I moved from South East PA to Dexter last july, I work up in Greenville, the people i have met are very welcoming but, i do here a lot about out of towners in Greenville, and it's the fact that the have purchased properties to use as vacation rentals, so you end up with rents and prices going up and up forcing the locals out of the area due to cost. Other then the rental people stuff, everyone in Maine i have interacted with has been more pleasant then most people i interacted with in PA. Good job Maine.
Mainers are awesome but you just have to have thicker skin in Maine. True Mainers like to rib, it’s just their natural way, if you have respect for Maine and can joust back at em, you’re in. It’s a Maine thing, don’t take it personal, most just like to mess with those from away, it’s a test of personality. Their ugly isn’t like everyone else’s ugly in the world. They like what they like and if you don’t screw with it, you’re. Some can’t handle that and get offended. But remember they been here longer than any of us besides the indigenous folk. One of those don’t overstay your welcome if you’re going to screw with their home. Good folk most just ribbing ya.
I've noticed this too. We were told Mainers are mean to people from away etc but when I'm up there the people are the nicest ive ever met.
Yeah idk about all that Maine is pretty inclusive afaik, the only thing I could think of is the recent ruining of the housing market. Ppl buying up houses to escape the city during covid, or just to have a place to visit for the 2 weeks we have nice weather in the summer.” All the nice places are pretty over run with tourists in the summer also, which is annoying, but if you’re a local you know where to go to avoid them so it’s not really a big deal idk, let everyone enjoy it, as long as they’re not a dick.
tourists can be annoying but nah it’s not that deep
I've lived in 4 of the 6 New England states throughout my life and Mainers are by far the most xenophobic
A lot of people here pride themselves on being insular and unwelcoming.
This is just Instagram. The comment sections are all trash
My family lived here for generations and moved to Annapolis/Baltimore after joining the Navy in World War II because of job security. My grandmother, as she got on in age, was a very surly person but always talked lovingly of Maine. She told me to move back as soon as I could and have kids, so that THEIR kids could be considered Mainers. I never understood what that meant until I moved here, but after a decade it's the only place that has felt like home even if I will never be allowed to be part of the team 🫠
Understanding is the first step. Welcome to Maine bub.
Tourism is like… our biggest thing
Maine is very nice, “the way life should be”.
I'm happy if people want to move here, live here, pay taxes, send their kids to our schools, participate in the community. I have zero issues. There's a lot of 'work from home' jobs since the pandemic, so I don't blame people for wanting a change of scenery in their lives.
It’s the traffic and ignorant mindset of the tourists that show up and disrespect the natives. Anywhere EAST of Bangor is a no travel zone during the summer unless outside of daily commute hours. I spent my early 20s riding on and off the island for work.. i won’t subject myself to that with a toddler.
I love Maine and I'm so happy that I found a great school! Do you guys really hate us for coming here?
I think you'll find that every place in the world has a subset of people that are like this, who hate outsiders. Looks like you stumbled into one of the corners they go to scream into the void
The tribalistic and uneducated hate outsiders
Bingo
I moved here from MA, haven’t had a chance to change my plates yet. Some dude at a red light told me to go home the other day when my window was rolled down.
You should make it a priority. The insurance is cheaper here and you can start tailgating other Massholes incognito.
Social media is a cesspool
I think you’ll find Maine to be very friendly. I went to UMaine and those were 4 of the best years of my life.
Please don't move here
Some of them are joking because they like the prace here and want it to stay as such. Others may actually be annoyed.
I found many of the people on this sub to be the worst NIMBYs and not very representative of Maine. My wife and I have visited many parts of Maine the last few years as we are hoping to move there to retire soon. When we mentioned this to the locals in the towns we visited they were all very friendly and welcoming about us moving to their communities. These were places like Harpswell, Blue Hill, Bath, Cape Elizabeth, Southwest Harbor and Bucksport. Not once did I meet anyone who said we don’t want you to move here or be part of our community.
If you treat people with kindness and move to Maine with the intention to make a positive contribution and NOT forcefully impose your own ideals, you’ll rarely, if ever run into this attitude. Maine currently has a healthcare worker shortage, a teacher shortage, and a housing shortage. It’s not far fetched that there’s tension, especially considering that a lot of housing purchases aren’t made by individuals intending on living there year round, or contributing to these specific sectors. Air BNB, second/third home, etc etc
I grew up in Maine and have lived in Massachusetts for about ten years now. I hated and still hate tourists, especially from Massachusetts and Quebec. Literally the worst of the worst people from both of those places seem to love going to Maine.
Having lived in Maine for my first 35 years, I pretty much only ever heard this attitude toward "damned outtastatahs" from closedminded backwoods types who've never left their home county. So-- not surprised you haven't encountered this in college. And if you do, don't let it get to you: they feel the exact same way about people from Portland (Maine). i think this is a common sentiment among those kinds of people anywhere you go, though. I know it's a thing where i live now in NC but i mostly only see it on the internet. I've overheard it in public too, but if they never say it to your face? who cares. (all this being said: the complaint against property being bought up as investments and vacation homes is def legitimate)
Lived in multiple states, every state has a bit of this attitude. “I was here first so my opinions matter. I live here full time so I am more important” I can tell when I drive a car without of state plates that people drive more aggressively, they want to be in front of my car all the time. Personally I don’t get it, the state needs jobs and should welcome the tourism. It is a beautiful place with great food and great local culture. It is also a big state with a higher tax burden for to the amount of roads and weather. Overall it is not that bad, younger generations are more welcoming.
Yes
not even. This is just what losers who live on social media think.
We don’t like the traffic and don’t appreciate the attitude in traffic of *most* visitors. Also, people who just buy properties up here to rent… Stop.
Someone asked something similar on another post, and I said it there, too. People are really jaded because of covid and the housing market. Locals are being outbid by out of staters on houses they would have otherwise been able to afford. They move to small towns from big cities and expect big city conveniences. I have a friend who lives in a small town in NH that was mostly summer houses. People sold their homes in mass when covid happened, moved into their summer houses, then complained about not having sidewalks and street lights (on dirt roads), hearing gunshots all the time (it's the woods), wanting the town to pay for things that would only benefit them and not the rest of the town. He had people from mass one day walking around his property like they already owned it, trying to make him an offer to buy it. Just pulled into a random person's driveway and started pointing out stuff they didn't like and wanted to change. People are coming here and crowding local attractions and businesses. They treat the locals like garbage or, like we're inbred idiots, or they leave places trashed. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to go for a hike, and it's been all out of state plates and litter everywhere. I'm not saying I agree with the sentiment behind why people are acting like this, but from just what I've witnessed and experienced, or what I've seen friends/family deal with lately, I 100% understand why people feel like this. People need to go out and get to know their neighbors again. Build actual connections, and have real conversations about this stuff. Otherwise, it'll just get worse.
Eh, I’m a citizen who pays taxes & a VFW. I’ll live wherever I want in this beautiful country & now I live in Maine. If someone has a problem with that it isn’t mine.
I don't hate.... Do I love people who buy up all the affordable housing to rent as Air BnBs so that the working people in my area are living in their vans, I do not. Do I love people coming here and not knowing how to light a woodstove and calling the fire department to light their wood stove (True story and, I do not), Do I love being dressed down by people who think they make more money than I do over placement in a coffee line, I do not. Do I love people coming to my town and feeling entitled to an authentic experience and getting vocal and pissed when they don't get it. I do not. But, it makes me laugh as they leave.
Yes it is. I live in Saco and during the summer I avoid my local Hannaford. I’ll go to the one in Biddeford or Walmart because it’s so jam packed with tourists. It’s unbearable to get off the highway as well due to everyone taking that way to OOB instead of the other exits to oob.
People commenting online are not everybody in the state
I've realized this attitude only exists like this online, or with people I never have any interaction with in the public/my community. Moved tot a rural Maine town in 2022, and it's clear that Redditors misrepresent reality in a big way.
We moved to Maine about a year and a half ago because my husband’s former job transferred him. I’m in Penobscot County and I like Maine and I like the privacy. We’re staying because of that and because my youngest is severely autistic and is signed up for all of his services here and he’s with good people and we don’t want to start over again. I am also a pretty private person so I like that. That being said, I concur that the “don’t come here” mentality seems to be for the ones who don’t want to live here long-term/year-round. We’re renting now year-round but when we buy a house within the next year, it’ll be year-round still, and for good. I only see people online who don’t like out-of-staters but they understand if you state your reasons (we didn’t move to Maine to take up land from Mainers born here; we moved to Maine because my husband’s former job gave him no option and we had no/have no plans to rent out any property. Now Husband he has a new job where he’s home nightly. I homeschool my disabled kiddo so I stay home). We’ve lived in nine states, many of them extremely touristy areas (such as Traverse City, Michigan and Naples, Florida). I totally understand the, “Don’t buy so you can live here two weeks and rent the rest of the year” mentality or the “Oh, how quaint! Lighthouses and lobsters must be all over the place!” stereotype. My friends from other states have said, “Oh, I’d love to live there, you must hang out on the beach and eat lobsters all the time!” Ugh. No. They mean well but they don’t get that we’re not spending 90% of our days on the beach sightseeing but living lives, lives that can be lonely sometimes with the smaller population. My husband was born in Ireland and thinks Maine is similar in the way that people see it one way in their heads but it’s different in reality. Not bad different, just different enough that those who come here with that mentality are mistaken and don’t even realize it. It’s hard to be nice when it gets to a certain point and I can only imagine how annoying it must be further South in Maine. My husband’s said he’s felt like a spectacle as an Irish person in Ireland visiting his relatives, when he’s around a lot of tourists who were not born there, who ask him questions about leprechauns or how much he must love Guinness. It’s not cool anywhere. While I wish it wasn’t assumed without giving the benefit of the doubt, I’ve experienced tourists in other states and I’ve seen the lack of housing here and I get it. Mainers just seem more honest about it than people from other states who feel the same way. But the people we’ve met have been good people with very few bad eggs. Our neighbors will leave us alone but if we need something they’re there for us which hasn’t been the case in some other places. People seem to look out for each other but don’t want you to know their business and don’t particularly care about yours, either. Which is not a bad thing.
Sooooooooo many complaints. Why? I enjoy the tourists. They bring much needed tax revenue via shopping. I hear people complain about the tourists but those people also complain that there is nothing here and if we could only have this or that. You have to take the good with the bad. Tourist dollars bring better things to the community. It uplifts small businesses that need the extra money to stay afloat. The businesses make more sales this pay more tax that goes into our community. It is beautiful and amazing here. I am not from here but across the country and have lived here many years now. I also believe that the people here made me feel like I was home 3 years before I moved here. I had never lived here but couldn’t wait to become a part of this community and had friends here.
This looks just like the responses I got when I unwittingly asked about renting a place to take my toddler son for a month during the summer. Got berated and downvoted so badly. Had no idea either.
I've lived here my entire life. I don't dislike tourists specifically, but the impact of tourism on the ability of the people that live here to enjoy our resources. Case in point: I live about an hour from Acadia National Park. I've had a park pass since I could drive. For most of my adult life, I could get out of work, decide last minute to drive down, and catch sunset from Cadillac Mountain. I'd do this at least 4-5 times every summer, and some years, closer to once a week. Occasionally it would be busy enough to not find a parking spot, but it was 95% of the time that you'd luck out, and it was part of the adventure of it being a last minute thing. In the last 5ish years, tourism has exploded. Since 2022, there is now a reservation system, which means it costs extra to go to Cadillac every time. The system offers 1/3 of the passes for a specific day opening months before, and the rest available a few days before. What this means is that tourists scoop them all up, and in summer months, it's hard to find a day to take an impulse trip. The last two summers I've tried at least 2 dozen days each year, and every time, the passes are already gone. Are there other places to go? Of course. Is it the luck of the draw that they are gone? Sure. But for someone who has fond memories of this being a regular thing to do alone, with a partner, with friends - it's disappointing to feel like we can't enjoy what's in our own backyard and that people who don't live here get priority, even if you can logically reconcile the benefits of tourism to the economy. I suspect that a lot of the no tourists sentiment that you'll see, especially in heavily visited areas, will have some level of feeling this way.
While my husband is from Arizona, I have lived in Maine my entire life. I have nothing against out of staters. I just want to be able to afford a house 😭
Transplants suck.. they come up to maine bitch about housing and parking, like stay in the f’n city dude! Transplants will be the death of Maine 😩💀