Peaks Kenny State Park
Drum roll please…and the best family campground goes to… Peaks Kenny State Park!
Well at this point, we still have a few more to go. This trip marks #10 out of the 12 Maine State Park family campgrounds. We were split on favorites before with one of us on team Lily Bay and the other rolling with team Cobscook, but after this weekend, Peak Kenny has claimed the #1 spot for the both of us; just for now of course. We also have some lumped close behind in 3rd place.
Rankings are really just a waste of time, we would recommend a stay at 9 out of the 10 that we’ve camped at so far. They are all unique and amazing in their own ways. We do our best in each post to try and highlight those types of things that make them stand out. The only one we wouldn’t recommend an overnight stay would be Lake St. George because of the campground layout and proximity to the busy road. With that being said, we highly recommend a day visit there. The beach area and lake is beautiful.
Why does Peaks Kenny State Park get an A +? Well, it’s like taking bits and pieces of what we love at each state park and putting it all in one location. First off, it is exactly 2.5 hours from our home. Spending as much time on the road as we do, we have found this to be the magic number. Anything over a 3 hour commute with kids is just harder. Even without kids, it really eats into your recreational time when you are only going somewhere for 2-3 days, so being able to take a straight shot from home without stopping is super sweet. Dover-Foxcroft is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the state.
We all praise how beautiful all the corners of Maine are, so imagine what the heart of it looks like. Did you know that Dover-Foxcroft is also the home of the Maine Whoopie Pie Festival? This was relayed to us by our historian tour guide neighbor. Quick shout-out to Derek, the best tour guide in Portland! (https://realportlandtour.com/)
Maine Whoopie Pie Festival 
The Real Portland Tour
Downtown Dover-Foxcroft has everything you need and it’s only 15 minutes from the park. Even though we have become more confident from our last camping trip and our Allagash trip, we were still going into the woods with a 3 month old and a toddler. Having a hospital down the road is always reassuring at this stage, especially after realizing we wouldn’t have reliable cell service for the whole weekend. We did use the rangers landline at one point to check on things back home. Speaking of the staff, they keep this place in tip-top shape and they were all such a pleasure. The sites are meticulously cleaned after each checkout, the lifeguards kept an eye on the beach all day, everyone at the gate was a joy. The list goes on and on but top notch service “all around.”
Sink for washing dishes 
Grocery on way to Park
Next on the list were the trails; there are miles and miles of them just on this property alone. Whether you wanted to hike a small loop or large loop, head to a beautiful point that overlooks the lake or just wanted to stretch your legs with a stroller on some dirt roads.
The vehicle traffic here was probably the least of any of the parks we’ve stayed at with maybe Rangeley being tied. It’s mostly a numbers game and comes down to how many sites there are. 56 campsites occupy this park and they are all spaced out well. It was the most private experience to date which scores the highest points for us. It was a breath of fresh air from last month at Sebago in which there are 250 sites! And the sites here all had so much character because of the terran. We loved our site (#39) but you really can’t go wrong with any of them. The moss and roots reminded us of the bold coast at times but with more of a mountain feel. You had full on boulders just hanging out in several sites, plus woods all around you. Now this is camping! Make sure to keep your eye out for the picnic table art.
We had lots of special guests on this one but the theme was certainly “cousins.” Some of our fondest memories of childhood involve camping with cousins. These gals are all still pretty young but the two oldest, Eloise and Aya were in full play mode for 3 days and talk about an awesome playground. Yes, the playground at the beach was wonderful but we are talking about the woods. This place was perfect for kids to explore and nothing better than being able to step off into a different world, directly from the campsite.
Dangerously straining pasta 
King and queen of the north (Danielle’s parents), drove south to join their children and spend time with all of their grandchildren for the weekend. Danielle’s brother Dominic, wife Kim and daughters Aya and Phoebe joined as well. Pepere, newly retired from the paper mill and being the innovator that he is designed and created something for our picnic tables that we have been on the search for since visiting Aroostook State Park. There we saw a device attached to a picnic table that helped declutter and organize things. Then we never saw it again, so much like a musician who can listen to a song and then turn around and play it, Pepere took our description and brought it to life with stuff just hanging around the house. Do you think he’s missed around the mill when something breaks down now?
Half this park feels nice and tucked away but then the other half is this incredible beach area; which probably gets a lot of good day use. As for swimming, it’s neck and neck with the other top park swimming holes. The backdrop was something out of a painting with Bornstone Mountain looking down on you from a distance. The beach is located in a carved out cove. You can drive over but that’s the long way because a couple short trails will get you from your site to there in a jiffy.
While mom, Eloise and pepere hiked the beautiful Brown’s Point Trial (3.4 miles) during one afternoon, dad and a sleepy Adeline strolled down to the beach in time to witness a bald eagle circle above. That’s what this park does, just keeps hitting 3 pointers from all over the court.
It was a weekend of shaking our heads in disbelief and just feeling blessed to be where we were and who we were with. This particular week started with us looking at dates in September to possibly reschedule because it was our 4th weekend in a row on the road and we were feeling quite burnt out (poor planning). But halfway through the weekend all we wanted to do was add one more day to this trip. We had become very comfortable and confident camping with Adeline, and Eloise was in her true element at Peaks Kenny. Maybe they both were feeding off us (well Adeline was certainly feeding off one of us) because all 4 of us were perfectly content here. So much that after we checked out on the final day, we all were in no rush to leave and spent a few more hours at the beach before heading home. We had never done that before on any of our previous camping trips.
Listen, everyone has their favorite Maine state parks and we always love to hear why. There are some more popular than others and after visiting 26 of them, we completely get it. This is for sure “our park” and when we wrap this up next year, Peaks Kenny will probably be an annual camping trip for our family for many years to come. It’s a 10 in our book or blog.
When we first started doing this, we felt the need to jam everything in to maximise our visit to the state park and area. For example, we would have loved to canoe here but we were honest with ourselves and knew that would have been too much at this point with the baby. Even though you can rent some here, it still would have been forced during this visit. What we’ve learned is that sometimes it’s nice to pass on a few things (less is more) because it just gives us more of a reason to come back and enjoy them to the fullest.
2 thoughts on “Peaks Kenny State Park”
Hi there. Just wanted to thank you for your blog and for this review. My wife and I just stayed at Peaks-Kenny, a decision made because of your review, and we LOVED it. You were so right about it. It was perfect for us (our family is similar to yours… two kids, two years apart, only a little older). We will be back. Thanks so much for your blog! We are heading to Mt. Blue in a couple of weeks.
Brian, thank you so much for the feedback! We’re so happy our blog was helpful in your decision to camp at Peaks-Kenny. Enjoy Mt. Blue. We were blown away by the views up there!