What Is Maine’s Best Place to Live?

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For the outdoor sports enthusiast, Rangeley is pretty hard to beat. Crystal blue lakes and rolling wooded mountains surround the town, with its year-round population of not quite 1,200. The University of Maine gives Orono a more cosmopolitan feel. The Collins Center cradles highbrow arts and culture, there are two quite solid microbreweries, and Maine's north woods wilderness sprawls out the back door.
 
 

Towns of geographic extremes, Fort Kent and Lubec share a rugged beauty and gobs of small-town charm. Tourists wander Down East in the summer to snap pics of Lubec's famed West Quoddy Head Light. Fort Kent comes alive in winter with snowmobilers, dogsledders, and cross-country skiers. You can order lobster harborside in Lubec, but does it hold up to poutine in Fort Kent?
 
 

They're already adjacent, but we're pitting South Portland and Cape Elizabeth head-to-head. The former has pretty lighthouses, family-friendly Willard Beach, retail galore, and up-and-coming residential neighborhoods. The latter has pretty lighthouses, family-friendly Crescent Beach, the state's second-highest median household income, and a still-bucolic vibe.
  

A strong sense of community on Chebeague Island (the island seceded from Cumberland a few years ago largely to keep its own elementary school) complements its picturesque seaside charm. On the mouth of the Piscataqua, meanwhile, Kittery is enjoying a creative-class renaissance, with hip new restaurants, bars, and businesses turning Kittery Foreside into one of the state's most hangout-able neighborhoods.
 

The "Moonbat Kingdom" of Belfast is as lively and funky as it's ever been, with arguably the state's most happening downtown hosting what seems like two or three festivals a month. Things are a little more subdued over in Surry, the Blue Hill peninsula's often-overlooked hamlet with gorgeous views of Morgan and Union River bays. The amenities of town are just up the road in Ellsworth or Blue Hill, but Surry itself is all saltwater scent and quiet country roads.
 

Damariscotta has all the perks of the midcoast — hills and beaches, terrific paddling on tidal rivers, a nascent farm-to-table dining scene — with a fraction of the summer traffic of Wiscasset or Camden. The villages of Mount Desert (Northeast Harbor, Otter Creek, Pretty Marsh, Seal Harbor, Somesville, and Hall Quarry) are as pretty as they come, with the rounded mountains of Acadia National Park ever looming.
  

The 7,000+ residents of South Berwick appreciate their proximity to the coast with none of the beach town hassles, along with civic institutions like a state-of-the-art library in an old church and the town-operated Powderhouse Hill ski area. Cornish's sweet little downtown may be Maine’s number one antiquing destination, and the town is perfectly positioned for those who like to ski and hike, surrounded by quiet countryside and about equidistant from Portland and North Conway, New Hampshire.
  

Summer visitors come for the resorts, but Monmouth offers its 4,200ish year-round residents affordable lakeside living with the option to commute to work in Lewiston/Auburn or Augusta. Bethel, population 2,600, balloons in the winter, when powderhounds flock to the Sunday River ski resort, but the quintessential mountain town is a hard-to-beat base camp the rest of the year for hiking, rafting, and mountain biking in western Maine.
 

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