General Information:
Durham Leisure Campground is a family-owned campground located in Durham, Maine and is about 25 minutes north of Greater Portland and next door to Freeport, Maine.
Every year we like to stay to do some 2-night/weekend camping and staying local is a great choice when looking to maximize our camping time. We love that this campground is only 35 minutes from our house!
This campground gives you easy access to Outlet Shopping in Freeport, Bradbury Mtn. State Park, Wolfe Neck State Park, Pineland Farms, the Maine Wildlife Park, and so much more!
This is a 36-site RV ONLY (no tenters, sorry!) campground. There are a combination of back-in and pull-through sites. All the sites are full hook-up and offer plenty of shade. They also have some cabins available for rent. Durham Leisure Campground appears to have some expansion plans in the works as noted with the campsites marked ‘XX’ on the map. During our stay, you can definitely see the expansion work being done.
Upon arrival, you will check in at the front office; if the owners are not there, you are directed to call them on the cell phone number provided. For our stay this year, we had to call and had no issues with check in! From there, the owners will lead you to your site and offer a recommendation for where to park on the site and then leave you to settle in on your site.
Reservations are made through a reservation request form online or you can call the campground. We have now stayed at Durham Leisure Campground twice and both times I have called to book our reservation. Honestly, I think calling campgrounds to book reservations is always the way to go. You can ask for site recommendations and get the nitty-gritty details about the site you book that you wouldn’t see when booking online.
Quiet hours are 10pm-8am. Again, another VERY quiet campground for us! There are a host of seasonal sites at this campground and I happen to know they welcome and cater to the traveling nurses and contracted Bath Iron Works employees. Therefore, it was ALWAYS quiet, day or night, with many campers away from their sites for the day.
As you know by now, I like to get out and walk in the morning. There is a trail (not marked) on the property that you can venture down. I didn’t explore the trail but did get a good workout going up and down the entrance hill to the campground. A loop up-and-down the hill was about .4 miles… so I did that a couple of times.
The salt water pool is by far our favorite campground pool to date! Mostly because we were usually the only family using the pool. They have a HUGE shallow area that would be perfect for those younger kiddos to sit and splash around it. They have some rules around floaties and noodles but you can find a bin of pool toys for kids….think of a random collection of “sinkies”. A hot tub is also within the pool compound.
A playground is available behind the camp office and is really geared for the 5 and under crew and in the camp office, you will find a great play area for kids, a wonderfully stocked children’s and adult libraries and a good selection of DVDs you can check out during your stay.
Now for the Google Reviews…I normally do not include or address reviews because to each their own on how much they weigh these reviews in their decision to stay at a campground or not.
BUT…I need to address two things I noticed about those 1-star reviews you will see if you do a search of their Google reviews.
1.) Many of these 1-star reviews are over 3 years old. Personally, I think Google reviews should be no older than 2 years old. Because a lot can happen within those two years.. ownership changes, management changes, expansion, etc.
2.) There were a couple of mentions regarding the owners’ religious viewpoints. From the religious books noted on the shelves, I could deduce their religious preferences. However, did the owners EVER push their views and opinions on us? ABSOLUTELY NOT. And frankly, I have had more pushy sales people knock on my door trying to sell me on solar farms than anything we ever encountered at Durham Leisure Campground.
So with that, I encourage you to check out Durham Leisure Campground for yourself! I promise you will not be disappointed!
Cleanliness of Site/Site Details:
With mature tree growth, every site has a good portion of shade for the day. The sites are very clean with a mostly gravel site. Sites vary with the amount of grass they have on them.
Sites can accommodate some pretty big rigs as we observed during check in that a 45 foot, triple axle RV was calling the campground home. We did not feel like we were right on top of our neighbors but close enough that we were mindful of our noise in the morning before quiet hours were over.
There really isn’t a bad site at Durham Leisure Campground. We have stayed in the pull-through sites #26 and #27 and they were fantastic. The sites were very clean and relatively level. #26 has a very cool fire pit created with some boulders and rocks while site #27 has a great ball-like metal fire pit.
The only site I would probably stay away from due to have to back in around some pretty big trees is site #29. However, it appears that it’s being used as a seasonal site but…doesn’t hurt to ask to not be put in that site.
The picnic table was a standard size, at 5 feet long. I love our picnic table covers, especially because they come in a variety of sizes…including 5 feet long!
Site Costs:
We stayed at a pull-through (20/30/50 AMP) site for $60/night. Durham Leisure Campground is one of the least expensive nightly rates of our summer of camping! In looking at their website, rates range from $60-70/night and must be dependent on the size of your rig as $60/night was the rate we paid last year as well.
They do require a 2-night minimum and 3-night minimum on holiday weekends.
Additionally, we had booked for a 3-night weekend trip but due to some rain storms and schedule glitches, we had to rearrange our camping schedule a bit and could only come for 2 nights. The owners were great to work with and gave us a 1 night credit to use this year or next year. I really love when campgrounds can work with campers like this!
Amenities:
- Playground
- Outdoor Salt Water Pool
- Hot Tub
- Hiking Trail
- FREE Wireless Internet
- Coin-Op Laundry ($4.00 for washer/$2.00 dryer)
- Children & Adult Libraries
- Free DVD rentals
- Indoor Play Area
- Dedicated Bathrooms and Free Showers within the Campground (more on that later)
Bathroom Low Down:
There are 2 all-gender bathrooms located in the camp office building. One is accessible within the camp office building and the other, accessible through a door on the exterior of the building. You will find a toilet and urinal in each of the bathrooms along with air blades to dry your hands to reduce on paper trash.
There are also two shower rooms accessible on the exterior of the building. There are benches and places to hang your towels as well as shower caddies in the stalls to place your toiletries. Again, VERY clean rooms!
The bathrooms and laundry are housed in one building with sex-separated bathrooms. Showers are attached in the same building as the bathrooms and laundry. They are accessible outside. There are 4 individual shower stalls all with their own exterior doors.
Bathroom Rating: A+
The bathrooms and shower rooms are very clean and very new! You can still smell that “new-build” smell when you walk in.
Overview of our Experience:
Durham Leisure Campground was a reset weekend for us. After a couple of week long trips with longer drive times, we were looking forward to staying close to home.
I made a reservation over the phone and really enjoyed talking to Qwenn. She then always texts to make sure that we have her contact information with us, should we ever need it! I think that is a great customer service touch before we even set foot into the campground!
When we arrived, we met the husband-owner of the campground and were escorted to our site, a pull through full hook-up site. He made some recommendations for how to best get into the site and then went off on his way!
My daughter’s priority is to patiently wait until we are unhitched, jacks are down, and slide is out. Once that is done, she knows she can quickly change into her bathing suit and head with me down to the pool…which is exactly what we did!
TBH, I love getting us away from the campsite so that my hubby can get everything hooked up and into place with a little peace and quiet…and then he will come down and tag me out and I will go set up the inside of the camper along with our outdoor living space.
#teamworkmakesthedreamwork
After a little swim session, we headed into Freeport for some quick shopping and dinner. We returned for a quiet campfire (again, this place is SO QUIET) and an early bedtime. PS-They have the best rate on bundles of wood…$6 for a HUGE bundle of wood.
On Saturday, we got ready to hike Bradbury Mountain in hopes of seeing the hot-air balloons from the festival in Lewiston/Auburn. However, the winds and wildfire smoke canceled the balloons and made for less than great views. However, we enjoyed our hike nevertheless!
After a quick lunch at the campsite, we spent the afternoon at the saltwater pool. Sidenote: I have really come to enjoy a busy morning of activities and then a slower afternoon at the campground. It’s a pace that really works for us.
Later in the afternoon, we adventured over the Desert of Maine for some mini-golf. And..I have to say, I’ve blogged about the Desert of Maine but not the mini-golf..and wow, it was a great, high-quality course!
We returned to the campground for another quiet night of campfires and games.
Sunday was another day spent packing up in the rain, which seems to be a trend this year! However, instead of packing up in the rain and driving 2+ hours, we had a 30 minute drive and were home before 12pm!
If you are local to Southern Maine or are looking to do some camping near Portland or Brunswick, you have to check out Durham Leisure Campground! This campground is centrally located to both cities with many opportunities to check out hiking trails and two state parks.
For more on our trip to the Freeport- area as well as all of other adventures, check out my posts on Instagram and Facebook.
Happy Adventuring!
~Natalie