By now it was clear – this dirt road wasn’t going to end at a jasmine garnished fruity drink. I mean, we were surrounded by forest on all sides, and I had a sneaking suspicion that we each were kinda hoping to find a ‘welcome to camp’ s’more wherever we finally parked.

We all kinda think that ‘all inclusive resorts’ are tropical; with manicured landscapes, jacaranda, tequila tastings, wristbands and just so much marble (marble floored entryways, etched marble counters, and at least a vaguely marble bathtub). Maybe the farthest thing from this picture is wood…which was just about all that was surrounding at this point…so much wood. 

We were about an hour deep into Maine’s interior, and pretty much everything was about wood – the forest, the help-yourself firewood bins, the decorative tree stumps. The all-inclusive we were heading towards was either going to stick out like a sore thumb or it was going to redefine our description of an all-inclusive to include a much more liberal use of words like rustic and hearty.

• Of course, we’re not traveling in 1996. We’d researched this getaway and seen the  pictures; pine-green cabins dotting a tumbled shoreline with camp style crisscrossing the undergrowth. But seeing it and being in it are two different things.

At this point, we were just a few minutes off the main road but the woods had completely overtaken us. The only break from the trees had been a thinly tampered hiking path hopping across the driveway, but, now, the foliage was thinning out enough for the first few cottages to peek through.

Just like the pictures, the cottages were a textured wash of sun bleached forest-green, but the photos hadn’t done them justice. Until we were here looking at them, we had no way of knowing how naturally the resort was set into the landscape. Old growth trees seemed to have dictated the camp’s layout, and the overall design objective seemed to be an attempt at making the whole place disappear into the woods.

We wanted to see Maine the Maine-Way

After talking about visiting Maine for nearly a decade, Jade and I had put together a concept of what the state was like, but – as we actually started planning – we realized that most of our ideas were just vague imagery based entirely on lighthouses, lobstermen & LL Bean. 

In our heads, Maine was more like a dream destination. We imagined the lifestyle as something a bit more refined than elsewhere in the country – a state that effortlessly mixed Atlantic Coastal Communities with an upscale well-dressed-in-deck-shoes, embroidered lobster print vibe.

Which – so charming…but we wanted to leave with a real understanding of this sorta elusive state.

So, as we set out to plan our long awaited trip, we leaned into the idea of ‘Getting Full Maine’. Part of this, to us, meant seeking out mostly one-of-a-kind, boutique or local accommodations – maybe not completely off-the-beaten-path but definitely not something we could find anywhere else.

• You can check out our full itinerary and see everything we visited : it’s a ready-to-go tour of ‘mostly coastal’ Maine.

That’s how we discovered ‘Lakeside All Inclusive Resorts’. From there, it didn’t take long to wind up pointed directly at Migis Lodge at Sebago Lake.

So What is a ‘Maine’ all inclusive resort

• Ok, this is where most people rely heavily on your knowledge of 1980’s film history – especially Dirty Dancing. (Literally everyone says, “…like in Dirty Dancing”. I mean, even I said it, and I’ve only ever ‘sorta’ watched the TBS cut).

Well…umm…these are like Dirty Dancing, or at least The Marvelous Ms. Maisel Season 2. 

Maine’s all-inclusive-resorts harken back to an older style of family travel that really most of the US has never experienced. The best of this style of vacation spot resembles a sort of 1950’s cabin getaway where families would travel for weeks during the summer – Dad commuting back and forth. Also, the same families tended to return to the same camp year-after-year.

While singles and couples are definitely welcome, each one we stayed at seemed specifically geared towards families. They provided various activities throughout the day geared separately for older and younger visitors, they usually have easily accessible swimming, and they are geared towards parking and never leaving.

• There is a wide range of ‘all-inclusive resorts’ in Maine, and not every one we stayed at had the same amenities, but all of the top rated spots seem to have this same ‘when you’re here, you’re here with family’ vibe.

We Stumbled Upon Migis Lodge

As I mentioned, we didn’t know about Maine’s all-inclusive culture, so we weren’t really looking for these resorts, but once we found them – it was hard to miss Migis Lodge.

Set into Maine’s forest landscape, Migis Lodge was intriguing if not unbelievable. A lakeside cottage style resort with sailing, kayaking, waterskiing, speed boating and lobster rolls all included. Add to that, there was some sort of kid camp experience that would be open and encouraged throughout our entire stay.

In addition to all the reviews, the thing that was possibly most enticing about staying at Migis Lodge was how rare it seemed to find an available reservation. We were able to squeeze in a 3-night stay in our own rustic condo…which is where we had just arrived.

First Impressions : You get a kayak and you get a kayak and you get a kayak

We parked in a little packed-earth clearing outlined with tree cuttings. While the staff filled their wheelbarrows with our bags and rushed them off, we followed a walkway around the main dining cottage and down to the lake.

Ok, this was when our stay really started taking shape. It wasn’t that there were boats and amenities we could check-out, it was that everything was just available. Along the sandy cove, there were a half dozen kayaks and paddle-boards open for anyone to try. (Actually, only about 40 yards from the shore there was a full sized sailboat – maybe 30 feet long – that was meant for the exact same thing – no reservations, no signing out) Migis’ policy was ‘if you want to do something, just go do it’. 

As a parent, this was huge. Augustine could try something, anything she wanted for as long or as short as she cared to do it. Which meant that only 10 minutes after getting out of our car, Augustine was standing on a paddle board all by herself trying to make her way out to the floating dock where the other kids were playing.

We’d find out later that there were actually several sandy beaches like this one, each stocked with an assortment of boats or paddle boards that were available all day to any guest. For me, that meant I was going to try and sail a sunfish…and of course I’d take Augustine for a ride…but that was for later.

We had arrived in the afternoon while a handful of families were still playing in the water…until, suddenly they all left. It happened so quickly that we couldn’t not notice. Everyone was splashing and yelling and then we were totally alone. We actually went to the main cabin and asked what time the lake closed…that’s when we found out that the lake didn’t close per-se, but most people left around this time to get dressed for cocktail hour and dinner.

Ok, this is when I had to borrow a sports coat. 

I had seen this play out in a bunch of 80s movies, but I never expected this to actually happen. I’d never go to a fancy restaurant without fancy clothes. Cut to: me reading Migi’s suggested packing list and waving off anything more complex than Banana Republic’s Summer Collection. So here I was, wearing chinos to a suit fight.

I chose a nice navy jacket, and half expected to feel out of place or hate being ‘gussied up’ for dinner, but like – I loved it – not in a ‘dressing up is fun’ way, more in a ‘we did a ton of playing today, now we’re done with that for the tonight’. 

It made the evening feel separate and special even though we were in pretty much the same place we’d been all afternoon.

• *I’m not sure that Augustine ‘wasn’t invited to dinner’, but she really wanted to do the ‘kids dinner’. Each evening, all the kids at camp got together and ate their dinner in their own dining room with games and crafts. Any traveling family without childcare will tell you this is a luxury! A total win/win. Augustine got to meet other kids and play and Jade and I got an adult night out (while on vacation!).

Outside on the cut-stone patio, dressed upscale casual with fresh shrimp and chilled chardonnay is where Jade and I got a clear view of how many of Migis’ visitors are Legacy.

This is a Place Families Return to Year-After-Year

I’m not going to lie, it was a bit intimidating. We were clearly one of the few ’new’ families able to book a stay at the lodge. Everyone here seemed to at least have a passing knowledge of each other, many of them had memories of Migis dating back decades. 

• We really understood this when I just happened to strike up a conversation with one of the older guys there and found out that pretty much everyone staying at the Lodge knew our story by lunch the next day.

While I typically push back against pre-planned scheduling, the motion of days at Migis Lodge had a sort of comfortable gallantry. The feeling here was dyed-in-the-wool upper-crust. What I mean is, there are places that try and show you how fancy everything is (like a Ruth Chris Steakhouse), and places that  just are fancy (like Tavern on the Green). This was definitely the ladder, everything was nice without being untouchable.

As a parent and even just as a guy traveling, this imbued the property with an extra feeling of safety and comfortability. There was an expectation on the guests to take care of the property and maintain the overall peaceful vibe, and there was a confidence in the staff that everything could be solved and taken care of.

Over the Next Few Days

Augustine was in love with Migis from her first ‘kids meal’, and demanded to join the all-day kids camp the next day. Which meant, she would spend the day doing arts and crafts, playing at the beach and eating with the other kids. Unlike other day-camps at hotels, this was set-up more like a kids-club on a cruise, well somewhere between that and a real camp. Each day of the week felt a little different, kids could come and go as they wanted, and it was almost expected that every kid would want to spend at least part of their day there.

So, Jade and I, we really got to enjoy the resort with each other (i.e. relax) without feeling guilty for not playing with Augustine – she didn’t want to be around us anyway.

For me specifically, I committed to learning how to sail the Sunfish, and (after I mastered that) I had plans to swim out and take the giant sailboat for a spin. 

I quickly learned that just being able to take a sunfish out whenever I wanted, still didn’t give enough time for me to feel comfortable taking Augustine (at that time 5) out in the lake on my own; Some because of the risk of flipping the boat and freaking her out but mostly because the second time I took the boat out, I ended up playing ‘find the wind’ for about :30 mins until a rainstorm blew in – the whole while convinced that I was going to have to swim-tow the boat back to shore somehow.

I did, however, convince everyone to pile in a rowboat…which is infinitely more difficult than Prince Eric makes it look.

Why Stay on a Single Property

We first discovered the benefits of single-property vacations at the Kea Lani in Maui. When traveling, there is an almost magnetic draw to go see it all. At least for us, most of our travel lives we’ve sorta silently believed that the adventure is ‘out there’. No matter where we were – the actual best experience was somewhere else, usually somewhere more difficult to reach.

After spending a week at the Kea Lani, we realized that the activities and experience made available on property are usually well throughout and fun…especially when traveling as a family. Migis Lodge echoed if not surpassed that experience. 

Throughout our stay, we continually found that enjoying Maine’s Outdoors was easy (which also made it more fun). Each of us got time to do something we really wanted to do and it was all just a few minutes away from everything else so we never felt like we were compromising or ignoring what the others wanted…there was room for all of us to do ‘our thing’.
Even more than just a resort, being an all-inclusive meant that Migis Lodge had the opportunity to really surround us with what they thought was the ideal ‘Maine Vacation’. That meant; nice evenings outside, cookouts, and lobster rolls…for lunch you could basically get all-you-can-eat Lobster Rolls. (Having spent $60 on a lobster roll the day after leaving Migis, I really missed the price-tag-free crustacean free for all).

**I want to mention the price really quick**

Migis Lodge is more expensive than many hotels in the area. It’s priced as per person based on the lodging option you choose and there are room minimums. Ok, Jade and I (especially me) were aware of the extra cost as we were booking and were a bit hesitant. 

After spending several days at Migis, we’ve looked at the numbers again.

To be honest, Jade and I have a hard time thinking of Migis as an apples-to-apples comparison to pretty much anywhere else. So, what we did was compared the cost of a stay here against the cost of accommodations + full day camp + a few activities/rentals + dining out. When all of that is considered (especially the full-day camp), Migis comes out just a bit more expensive…a few hundred dollars at most.
Looking at it that way, the overall experience is worth well more than this price difference, and, to us, it’s a way to spend essentially the same overall money and get a full experience for each one of us.

Booking Again

We’ve taken a bunch of great trips, and found really awesome family travel options all over. Still, Migis stands out as something especially nice; we talk about it at least once a month, we’ve recommended it to everyone we know, it was the first resort we’ve stayed at that we looked at booking the following year while we were still on property.

As much as I can try and quantify or identify what made Migis so special, there’s still something there that’s more of a feeling.  Somewhere between the overall ease and the comfortability of interacting with the resort and staff, Midgis exudes that easy enjoyment while still giving everyone the chance to try something new, explore and have fun.

This resort alone puts Maine in our Top Favorite Destinations, and, while there are other all-inclusives in the State, I wouldn’t skip out on this spot.