One of the highest-profile signature annual events in the Beautiful Place by the Sea is fast approaching, and now’s the time to be locking down your accommodations for it with us here at Ogunquit.com!

Just what event are we referring to? Why, OgunquitFest, of course, our coastal Maine hamlet’s much-loved fall extravaganza (with no shortage of Halloween-themed ingredients). You won’t find better accommodations for the fun-filled, family-friendly proceedings than our Ogunquit.com properties, including the Gorges Grant Hotel and Juniper Hill Inn.

OgunquitFest Weekend 2023: Autumn Awesomeness in the Beautiful Place by the Sea

This year’s OgunquitFest Weekend, which happens to be the 20th annual running of this mainstay celebration, will take place Friday, October 20th through Sunday, October 22nd. Read More

A winter stay in Ogunquit at the Gorges Grant Hotel, the Juniper Hill Inn or the Milestone puts some fantastic outdoor recreation at your fingertips in our beautiful Southern Maine backyard. Indeed, there’s too much to do to cover in a single blogpost, but in this one we’ll at least sketch out the possibilities by profiling three nearby destinations offering a diverse suite of activities for getting out and enjoying the frosted wonderland we’re lucky to call home.

Sleigh Rides at Rockin’ Horse Stables

C’mon, be honest: Is there a more romantic winter experience than a pastoral cruise over the snowpack in a horse-powered sleigh? That’s exactly the experience offered at Rockin’ Horse Stables in nearby Kennebunkport, where you can climb aboard for half-hour horse-drawn sleigh rides through a wonderfully wintry landscape of fields and woods and then wind down with hot chocolate before a crackling fireplace. In other words: a recipe for pure, unalloyed wintertime magic along the Southern Maine coast!

There are options for all sorts of group sizes: The stable’s small sleighs accommodate a pair of adults, the medium ones handle eight, and the large ones can fit about 18 passengers.

Another cool feature of the Rockin’ Horse Stables sleigh rides: They embark from the property 100-year-old barn.

Winter Recreation at Harris Farm

The 600 or so acres of Harris Farm in Dayton make a heck of a winter playground this time of year. You’ll find some 40 kilometers of cross-country ski trails with both wide-groomed and track-set courses, and a nice spectrum of difficulty level ranging from easy beginner routes to more advanced-level terrain. The property rents pulk sleds for little ones to be pulled along on skiing outings.

You can also rent a fatbike or a pair of snowshoes at Harris Farm if you’re not in the mood for Nordic skiing, and meanwhile there’s a sledding hill on hand as well.

Skiing and fatbiking are allowed at Harris Farm as long as the snow cover permits, so get in touch ahead of time if you’re unsure where things are at!

Powderhouse Hill

We’ve also got a long-running downhill ski area in our vicinity: Powderhouse Hill along Agamenticus Road. Owned by the Town of South Berwick and run by the volunteers of the Powderhouse Ski Club, Powderhouse Hill—which gets its name not from the white stuff itself but from a bygone storage structure for gunpowder built on what was originally known as Butler Hill—is open Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

For up-to-date reports on snow conditions at Powderhouse Hill, call the “Snow Phone” at 207-384-5858 or click your way over to the ski area’s Facebook page.

Book a Winter Escape on the Coast of Southern Maine With Ogunquit.com

Call the Beautiful Place by the Sea your home-away-from-home for a wintertime idyll with Ogunquit.com, and you’ll have no shortage of opportunities for some quintessential Maine snowplay! Keep in mind we’ve barely scratched the surface: There’s much else to do in the winter-fied great outdoors within day-tripping distance of our accommodations, from skiing and snowshoeing on Mount Agamenticus to bundled-up strolls right here in town along the fabled Marginal Way.

Book directly with us for the best savings for a stay at the Gorges Grant Hotel, the Juniper Hill Inn or the Milestone, the perfect cozy havens for some winter adventure along the Gulf of Maine!

Ogunquit is a small hamlet, it’s true, but it punches very much above its weight when it comes to arts and culture. As a guest of ours at the Gorges Grant Hotel, the Milestone, the Juniper Hill Inn or the Cottage at Acorn Lane this fall, you’ll be nice and close to some fantastic museums and galleries right along our charming stretch of New England coastline. Here’s a look at just a sampling of them!

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At sunup on April 19, 1775, the British Army and the Colonial militia squared off in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the opening salvo immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson as the “shot heard round the world”—the launch of the American Revolution.
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Ogunquit isn’t a big town—that’s the way we like it—but it comes well endowed with arts and culture: backdropped, infused, and informed by the Beautiful Place by the Sea’s coastal setting. Read More