Kayaking, stargazing, and campfires at this remote Maine island, reached only by boat

“Did it live up to the journey?” our guide asked as we paddled away from the granite shoreline, the canoe slicing cleanly through the calm waters of Penobscot Bay. My arms ached from three days of hauling gear, my hair still smelled faintly of smoke from last night’s campfire, and the salt left a thin crust on my skin. But despite the exhaustion, I smiled and said, “It was everything I wanted and more.”

We had spent a long weekend on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, accessible only by a rented skiff and a good bit of patience with the tides. There were no cabins, no rangers, no other campers, just seabirds circling overhead and the occasional lobster boat trundling in the distance. It was exactly the sort of trip where you stop keeping track of time and instead measure the days by sunrise, tide, and how many marshmallows are left in the bag.

Getting there was no small feat. The weather had delayed us a day, and the crossing required both luck and steady hands. But the effort only made the island feel more ours. During daylight, we explored tide pools that seemed alive with color, hiked across lichen-covered rocks, and swam in coves that were icy enough to steal your breath. At night, the sky revealed itself in a way you never see back home, thousands of scattered lights, glittering like speed stars across the horizon, as if the universe had decided to put on a private show for us.

It was not the sort of trip where you check your phone, because there was no signal to find. It was not the sort of trip where you expect convenience, because everything had to be hauled in by hand. But it was the sort of trip that lingers afterward, the silence, the wildness, the sense of being untethered from the world.

As we pulled back toward the mainland, the hum of engines returning faintly in our ears, I realized that I’d already begun planning the next trip. Not because the island had been easy, but because it had been just hard enough.