Ogunquit, Maine: The Way Life Should Be

This past week my husband and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary :). It’s been a crazy busy summer, and before we dove into preschool, soccer and all the other extracurricular activities that start back up in the Fall we wanted to take a weekend to FINALLY relax. Pre-Covid my husband traveled a decent amount, but with tradeshows and in-person meetings put on hold last year, this getaway was our first time without our kids since my daughter was born (just about 2 years ago!) I was definitely nervous, although I knew my kids were in great hands with my parents, but after focusing every meal, activity and outing on our kids it was nice to remember we did exists with just eachother before Mummy and Daddy life began.

Maine itself is a picturesque state and we are so fortunate to live so close to some of the most beautiful places and scenery, from the beaches and lakes to the mountain views and everything in between. In searching for our weekend escape we were looking for somewhere not to far to ease my mind of the “just in case” but also someplace unique that we’ve never visited. Well, that ruled out half of Cape Cod, and we’ve already spent weekends in Newport and Narragansett this summer so my husband suggested the Coast of Maine and that’s when it dawned on me how many people have raved about Ogunquit!

Like our three year old says, “first and first”, we needed to find a place to stay. I started searching some hotels in the area and my goodness there were a LOT of them. We ended up at the Meadowmere Resort and it was fantastic! One thing before I get any further is there is an intersection in downtown Ogunquit that’s a bit of a cluster fork, between the cars and the pedestrians it’s a little crazy so the location of the Meadowmere was perfect. We were walking distance to pretty much everything, the downtown area, the beach, Marginal Way and Perkins Cove. Our room had a cute fireplace, a great balcony overlooking the pool and a back entrance to the parking lot which made it super easy to get in and out!

We started our trip on a rainy Thursday, and after dropping the kids off at daycare we ran a few errands before we headed on our way. It was around 2pm when we realized we needed to stop for lunch and I started researching places to go, which is when I stumbled upon Anju Noodle House. It was quite honestly one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever eaten. It was legit so good that I may just drive up to Kittery in the middle of the day to pick it up again. The only place that we’ve eaten that was a little reminiscent was the OB Noodle House in San Diego and this Noodle House gave that one a run for it’s money.

Once we were done we headed on towards Ogunquit, which is actually only about 20 minutes from Kittery. We stopped at the beach and checked out the giant waves and must have said at least 100 times how much our kids would have loved it there. After checking in at our room we decided since it was raining to hop in the car and explore the area, and that’s when we spotted an amazing Wine Bar, named so appropriately, “Coastal Wines”. It was such a serene place and if I could I’d love to have the owner come and design my kitchen (in case you’re reading this come on down!) They have wine tastings, a retail store, charcuterie and other snacks that you can enjoy at the bar, in the lounge area, outside on the patio or by the huge bay window, which is where we sat. The wine itself was delicious, and the hospitality was just as great! Definitely a must do if you are a wine lover or honestly even if you aren’t, because the experience was fantastic.

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After finishing up we decided to head down two doors for dinner at Northern Union and it was so yummy. At home, going out to dinner isn’t the most, shall I say, relaxing experience so it was such a treat to sit down and fully enjoy our meals. We opted for Tapas style and ordered the brown bread, hummus (which was out-of-this-world), Shrimp a la Plancha, charcuterie board and my husband also ordered the Pork Belly Buns. Everything was just divine, and really made for a wonderful meal, also the drink selection and wine inventory there is one of the best we’ve seen, 100% would recommend checking out Northern Union for dinner, reservations strongly encouraged!

I’m not going to lie, waking up Friday was a bit sad, during the week I’m usually downstairs before the kids wake up with the dogs already let out and fed and the kids breakfast on the table. So when I woke up at 6 with nothing to do it took me a minute to realize I could actually just lay down and not have to scurry around getting everything, and everyone, ready.

We took one of the recommendations we picked up yesterday from the bartender at Coastal Wine and headed over to the Cliff House for some morning brew at Bald Head Coffee Co. and the coffee was great but the view was outstanding! If you’ve never visited the Cliff House which is on the border of Ogunquit and Cape Neddick you totally should for coffee, dinner, maybe a massage or just to sit by their firepit. We didn’t stay there since the price was a bit out of budget, but I was actually fine with it because like I said, the location of the Meadowmere was on point with what we wanted to do! Once we finished our coffee we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and walked downtown. We stopped in a few of the stores before the restaurants opened for lunch, most of them didn’t open until at least 12, but we ended up at Cornerstone Pizza and oh-my-god was it good. The crust was so thin and crunchy and we sat out on their patio and loved the ambiance with all their umbrellas!

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After we ate we headed for a walk down Marginal Way, which is a little over a mile long walk that starts in the downtown area along the cliffs and in front of some outrageously beautiful houses. My husband and I picked a whole bunch of houses there we decided could work as our new Maine vacation home. At the end of Marginal Way you’ll enter Perkins Cove which is so so so cute. We LOVED the area! From this little slice of heaven you can take a boat to the Nubble Lighthouse or an all day deep sea fishing expedition. There’s also a bunch of adorable stores and a few restaurants. We stopped at Barnacle Billy’s after a half dozen recommendations about how tasty their rum punches were and they did not disappoint! There’s a roof deck there that has some great views, or you can do what we did and just sit on the outside porch and watch the itty bitty drawbridge in the cove go up and down. That’s the minute I realized I had totally shut my brain off, when I was sitting drinking a rum punch watching a drawbridge instead of dreaming up the next toddler approved craft.

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We walked back from Perkins Cove and changed into our bathing suits and made our way to Ogunquit beach, I’m telling you our lunch at Cornerstone was so good and filling we still hadn’t eaten anything else all day, which as a mom was weird for me since I always have an applesauce in my bag in case of emergencies. The beach in Ogunquit is really spectacular. It’s flat and sandy and the waves are huge, we laid there and I read my book in peace, which I may add is a must read, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, go order it now! After our beach adventure we walked back to the hotel and changed, called the babies for the 100th time to say hello and have my son ask me to “Be an animal” on Facetime and then off we went to dinner.

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I would consider my husband and I foodies. We love good food, good restaurants and good experiences and thus far into our trip everywhere we went checked all those boxes. Our dinner Friday night at the Treehouse Taqueria was no exception! The tacos & margs scored a 10/10 and the portions were perfect. We ordered the queso and the Mexican street corn apps and each one had the perfect amount of chips to dip ratio. Plus lobster tacos were lick your plate good, which I didn’t do BTW but I totally could have. Everyone that we knew whom visited Ogunquit in the past told us to check out the Front Street Piano Bar, so we went in for a drink and it was really fun! We only stayed for a bit because it was a little more crowded than I think we were comfortable with, but the vibe there was awesome. We rounded out our night with some expresso martinis at CREW and then walked back to the hotel for our last night of sound sleep before heading home in the morning.

Saturday morning we packed up and checked out of our hotel, with a promise that we would definitely be back, albeit we may not be able to escape alone again but that’s okay because our little ones would have loved the Meadowmere too (indoor & outdoor pool, outdoor hot tub and game room were all on the premises). As my husband would say, I’m a bit of a coffee snob, but there’s nothing that throws my day off more than a sub par cup-o-joe. Luckily I had stumbled upon the Instagram page for Backyard Coffee and my oh my was it good. There’s a reason there’s constantly a flow of happy customers and we were right there with them! Our last meal of vacation was just as amazing as the others, the Greenery Cafe had a bit of a wait but it was worth every minute (a scrambled egg stuffed with avocado on a homemade ciabatta roll, are you kidding me, I think I need one right now). Neither one of our kids really like breakfast so sitting down and actually getting to enjoy one and a blood orange mimosa, was the perfect way to end our anniversary trip.

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If you’ve stuck with me this far then I really hope it’s because you’re planning your own get away and some much needed R&R. Ogunquit is absolutely beautiful, and not to far from Boston or the South Shore, where we are, which makes it the perfect “first time away” location. It’s no wonder the state of Maines two nicknames are The Way Life Should Be and Vacationland, because when you’re there, it really is the truth.