*Updated July 2026*
General Information:
Smuggler’s Den Campground is located in Southwest Harbor, Maine and is about a 4 hour drive from Portland. It opened in 1969 and has been owned by the same family for four generations!
I have to give them a HUGE shout out! They are the kindest family and have the best staff working for them.
It appears many of their staff live at the campground and we enjoyed getting to know them as we made our nightly trek to the Camp Store for an ice cream treat.
Smuggler’s Den is a medium campground that welcomes RVS, pop-ups, and tent camping and has a total of 93 camping sites with about half devoted to tenting. In addition, they have 12 cabin rentals, 2 RV rentals, and 2 house rentals.
There is a variety of RV sites including pull through sites, cement pads, back-in sites, and ones that also include tenting platforms.
Neat feature alert: You are given your site location and directions to your site ahead of time (once you pay your balance) and can go directly to your site without stopping at the camp store. *This is not available for cabin, RV, and house rentals though.
If I had to recommend any RV sites they would be: sites 75 & 88. However, honestly, you would be happy with most of the sites on the property.
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My only heads up on a site is #117. It is placed close to the camp store, bathrooms, and where 3 camp roads converge so it’s definitely busy and there is no vegetation border to give you any privacy. However, if you are a social butterfly and love to people-watch, then this site is definitely for you!
Quiet hours are 10pm-8am. If you are looking for a quiet campground, THIS IS IT! Many times, my husband and I were sitting by the fire commenting on how quiet it was during the evening.
There were definitely more noises in the early AM hours as people came and went from the Cadillac Mountain sunrises, left early for hiking adventures, or got a jump start on heading home with their camper or to their next adventure… but even those noises were quiet in comparison to other campgrounds we have visited.
And..I wasn’t sad about the AM noise given we have an early riser in our midst!
If you are a walker like me, I could do about a .4 mile loop a couple of times within the campground or take the trail on the property that connects you to the Lurvey Spring Road (which is technically in Acadia National Park!) for some more miles…which is what I did on occasion! Walking on Lurvey Spring Road can get you to either Long Pond or Echo Lake.
As always, don’t forget to bring a map or take a screenshot of one since cell phone reception isn’t great there.
Finally, the pool. The heated pool was a HIT with our daughter who is part fish, I swear!
Also, they have a kiddie pool that is about a foot deep making it fun for even the littlest campers.
Cleanliness of Site/Site Details:
We have stayed at site #75 and have LOVED IT! Check out the campground map to see where we stayed. The site was impeccable, clean, and VERY level. Our camper sat on a gravel site and we had lots of access to grass and two big boulders that my daughter enjoyed attempting to climb up.
We had some tree root situations to deal with where our camping rug was placed but we managed to make do.
While we were close to our neighbors, with the mature vegetation around our site, we had no problem enjoying our campsite even with our neighbors relatively nearby.
The fire pit was clean and in a great location and you were allowed to hang a clothesline..which was crucial given our frequent pool adventures!
For the 2027 season, we will be moving to a new site and I look forward to sharing that site with you next year!
Site Costs:
We stayed at a gravel back-in site for $85/night during 2026. Back-in cement pad sites and pull through sites are $95/night. These rates are the same throughout the season. WI-fI is INCLUDED with your site. It took a little bit of figuring out how to connect our Amazon Firestick but worked really well for us.
They have a nice policy where you are allowed to re-book your site for the same timeframe for the following year when you check-out..which is what we always do!
I will say calling to book our reservation was a little easier for me than navigating their online registration system. AND…they always have the next year’s rates posted!
Amenities:
- Heated Pool: The pool area includes chairs, loungers, and picnic tables under a shaded enclosure. There is a large pool with a slide along with a kiddie pool. Both are heated.
- Playground
- Wireless Internet…that actually works
- FREE showers
- Coin-Op Laundry (3 washers, 4 dryers). Note: best times to find a free washer are mid-day!
- Dedicated Bathrooms and Free Showers within the Campground (more on that later)
- Camp Store. Filled with really good essentials, ice cream, cheap bundles of wood ($5/bundle..and you get a good number of pieces), etc.
- LIVE lobsters and all the equipment to cook & eat lobsters at your site!
- Trail from campground to the Lurvey Spring Road for access to Acadia National Park and Long Pond and Echo Lake
- Island Explorer Bus Stop
Bathroom Low Down:
There are two bathroom facilities within the campground. One facility is more centrally located on the campground and the other can be found down at the group tenting sites.
Centrally Located Bathrooms: While the bathroom facilities are dated and show their age BUT…the bathrooms and showers (FREE) were very clean, like SO clean! You will find 3 private changing area/shower stalls in each sex-separated bathroom.
Group Tenting Bathrooms: These are BEST and NEWEST bathrooms at the campground! Hands down the best showers in ANY campground we have been too! These bathrooms are larger (obviously to accommodate group tenting parties) and are our preferred bathroom to use.
Note: both bathrooms are closed for one hour each day for cleaning.
Bathroom Rating: A-
The only reason I couldn’t give it an A+ was because of the age of the facilities more centrally located on the campground. A huge thing for me that I loved was that they closed the bathrooms each day for cleaning.
Overview of our Experience:
Arrival is always a breeze. We head directly to our campsite because they use an online check in system that provides you with written directions of where and how to access your campsite and all you do is click a check in button via your phone once you arrive.
All the sites have some level of shade thanks to mature tree growth. We usually stay at site #75 (for 2027, we will try a new one!)
Everything about the campground is SO CLEAN. Bathrooms never had trash overflowing; dumpsters never overflowing with trash; no pet waste to be seen; mowed areas…this campground is well taken care of.
Our favorite amenity was the heated pool. With a slide and kiddie pool, there was something for everyone. Additionally, while my daughter preferred to spend her free time at the pool, the playground has extensive things to do. The big adjacent field allowed us to get in some catching/throwing and hitting of softballs, too!
The Island Explorer bus makes a direct stop at the campground, making for easy access to Bar Harbor.
Overall, this campground is amazing. We continually visit this campground each summer!
Have you stayed at Smuggler’s Den or explored Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park? If so, share your experience in the comments below.
Thank you for reading this blog on The Wandering Chickadee! Check out more about our week on Mount Desert Island and in Acadia National Park by following along on Instagram and Facebook.
~Natalie