1 Week In Kokadjo, ME: Here’s What We Did

In September 2023 my parents flew over from the UK to join us for a month on our 50 state road trip. They were keen on seeing the fall leaves in New England, so we decided to spend three weeks in Maine and a week in Vermont.

Our first week was spent in Kokadjo which is located in almost the dead center of Maine near Moosehead Lake. We had a great time there and it was my personal favorite of the three weeks we spent in Maine.

Here’s a roundup of everything that we did there which will hopefully help show why I enjoyed it so much.

Where We Stayed

We stayed at this Vacasa property. In case you’re not familiar with Vacasa, it’s a vacation home rental company a little like Vrbo, Airbnb, etc. and you’ll sometimes find the same property listed across all those platforms.

A benefit that Vacasa has for us is that they have a partnership with Wyndham Rewards which allows you to book properties for 15,000 points per night per bedroom that a property has. What’s particularly great is that you can sometimes find properties that sleep more than two people but which only have one official bedroom which means you only have to redeem 15,000 points per night. Sometimes that’ll be because there’s a sofa bed in the living room, but other times – like with the property we stayed at in Kokadjo – it has a loft with beds that’s not an official bedroom.

What makes Vacasa bookings with Wyndham points even better value is if you have a Wyndham Rewards Earner personal or business credit card. Those cards give you a 10% discount when redeeming points for accommodation, so the 15,000 redemption drops to 13,500 points per bedroom per night.

There are lots of lakes and “ponds” in upstate Maine. I put “ponds” in quotation marks because what they refer to as a pond is what I’d regard as a lake. Something we loved about this particular property is that it was on First Roach Pond.

I’m not an early riser, but the photo Shae took below shows how moody the pond/lake could seem in the morning with the mist rolling in.

Things To Do In & Around Kokadjo

Kayaking

As I mentioned above, our Vacasa rental was on First Roach Pond. The cabin had complimentary kayaks for guests to use which was one of the reasons we’d picked it. My mom had never been kayaking, so one afternoon Shae and I took her out for her first experience.

Another day Shae and I kayaked to the other side of the pond which, seeing as it was more like a lake, took longer than it might sound.

Mount Kineo State Park

We went on several hikes while staying in Kokadjo, with my favorite being our hike up Mount Kineo. It’s a strenuous hike uphill, but the views make it worthwhile both on the way up…

…and from the summit where there’s an observation tower looking out over Moosehead Lake. Check out this post for more about the hike.

Lily Bay State Park

A much easier hike was the one we did at Lily Bay State Park. This one had very little elevation change, but still provided some nice views…

…as well as all kinds of interesting fungi along the way. Check out this post for more about the park and that hike.

Baxter State Park

Baxter State Park is a park covering almost 210,000 acres. It was a 1.5-2 hour drive from our cabin, a fair bit of it along dirt roads, some of which were in much worse condition than others.

Baxter State Park seemed like it would be a great place to go camping, but we only had a few hours to enjoy it seeing as we had to leave Truffles behind (the park isn’t pet-friendly). The park is meant to provide an increased chance of seeing moose, so we were hoping to see some while there – read this post to find out if we were successful or not and about the hiking trails we explored.

B-52 Crash Site Memorial

Back in 1963 a B-52 airplane crashed on Elephant Mountain which is near the cabin we were staying in. There had been nine crew members on board; two survived by ejecting, but the remaining seven crew members passed away.

The plane wreckage has been left on the mountain and is now a memorial to honor those lost in the accident. Here’s a post about our visit to the crash site.

Looking For Moose

Shae got up early on a couple of mornings before the sun had risen. She drove to Lazy Tom Pond which was about 15 minutes away in an even more rural area. Her aim was to get to see some moose at what she hoped would be a watering hole for them.

Despite her dedication, she sadly didn’t have an success with spotting the elusive creatures.

Where We Ate & Drank

Jamos Pizza

The town of Greenville was 20-30 minutes away from our cabin and was the closest life with some restaurants, a grocery store, etc. After getting a replacement tire in town, I picked up some pizza from Jamos Pizza for Shae and my parents to have (I don’t like cheese, so I wasn’t worried about getting any). It was good value for its size (I ordered a large) and they all enjoyed the pizza, so thumbs up for Jamos.

Spotted Cat Winery

We saw a sign for Spotted Cat Winery while driving to and from our cabin several times, so one afternoon we stopped in there for a tasting. Unfortunately it turns out that they don’t offer tastings, so we decided to try our luck by buying a couple of bottles of their fruit wine. At the time of writing this post we’ve still only tried one of them; as fruit wines go though, it was good.

Blair Hill Inn

After leaving Lily Bay State Park, we got an email through the website from someone who’d seen our car (we have our website address on the rear window) asking if we’d like to meet up for a drink. We thought that’d be fun, so on our last night in Kokadjo we met up with Aaron and his wife Malyla at Blair Hill Inn in Greenville. We arrived just before it got dark and so got to see the beautiful views from the porch.

I got a Lone Rooster Rye beer from Turning Page Farm Brewery which was good, while Shae had a couple of cocktails that she enjoyed; one was a spiced pear one that she particularly liked.

We also had some kind of white chocolate dessert which was so good that even Shae liked the taste (she’s not normally a fan of white chocolate).

What We Missed Out On

There were a few other places on our list of potential places to visit that we didn’t have time for. Here’s what they were:

• Penobscot River Rafting & Tubing
• Gulf Hagas Trail
• Moxie Falls
• Three Rivers Whitewater for tubing
• Little Wilson Falls
• Peaks-Kenny State Park