[Bill]

Well, start with this. New England as a whole is more than twice as big as South Carolina. And Maine makes up more than half of it, which means that Maine is bigger than SC. None of this rivals the big western states, of course, but perhaps it gives you some perspective into the distances involved.

To me, a base camp makes sense if you will visit sites (and sights) that are less than, say, 50 miles from the camp. If the spots to visit are, say, 100 miles away, you'll spend a lot of time just driving to them. In much of Maine, the sights are, indeed, more than 50 to 100 miles apart, depending on what you decide to see. On the other hand, when you get down to the midcoast (Acadia, as Phil points out, or Camden or Boothbay Harbor - all beautiful ocean locations) you can easily put a base camp in the middle, or at the southern end of an area, and drive from there. This is even more true as you get to Boston, which is really quite compact. A base camp south of the city would give you access to Boston, and also to Cape Cod, which is another beautiful place as Phil noted. I'm not as familiar with the south shore as I would like to be, so I'll defer to Phil on anything having to do with this area.

The bad roads that Phil mentions (and they can be quite bad) are mostly inside Rte 128, aka I-95, the inner loop road around Boston. Once outside the loop, the roads are all pretty good, and the outer loop, I-495, is great. And US Rte 1 in Maine is painful only because it is old, curvy-windy, mostly two lanes, and goes through the middle of every town that has a stoplight. Often quite scenic, though.

At risk of being branded a heretic, let me make two other observations. First, if you are also going to Vermont, some of my answers might be different. During the summer and fall, one of the most scenic roads in New England is I-89 across the Green Mountains in the middle of Vermont, from Burlington down to Lebanon, NH. I-89 is a relatively new road, and was built to accentuate the incredible countryside in Vermont. Rolling green hills, tall mountains, blue rivers down deep in the gorges, white birches, incredible fall color - it is beautiful everywhere. Whenever you see a picture of "Fall Color in New England", it was probably taken in Vermont. By the way, there is a car ferry that crosses Lake Champlain from the Adirondacks of New York to Burlington, if that has any effect on your plans.

Second, the only reason to go to Van Buren or Limestone or Madawaska is to say that you've been there, to the most northeast place in the country. There is basically nothing to see. And they are a long way from anywhere (GoogleMaps says 4 1/2 hours from Bar Harbor to Van Buren), so you'll need to balance the two considerations.

'Nuff

Bill