One of the best things you can do for your family is to spend a week in the summer on Sebago Lake in Maine. I guarantee you that you will have the best family vacation you’ve ever experienced, and you will create memories that you will cherish for your entire lifetime. Indeed, I pretty much guarantee that once you visit, you’ll find yourself going back again year after year.

Sebago Lake (also known as “Big Sebago,” and yes there is a “Little Sebago”) is the second largest, and the deepest, lake in Maine. It’s located just a half-hour from Portland, making it a very convenient location to many tourist destinations and activities. It is a very popular spot in the summertime, which means you need to plan in advance to find a camp that suits your needs.

In Maine, a “camp” refers to a cottage or cabin on or near the lake. Accommodations range from the truly rustic to the truly luxurious. Many camps are not “winterized”, meaning they do not posses the construction or the insulation to be inhabited in the winter. Some camps have only the basics – a loft with bunks for sleeping, simple furnishings, and no television or internet. Other camps are really decked out with luxurious bedrooms, gourmet kitchens, television and cable and internet.

I ask you, though, who the heck wants to spend all their time indoors watching TV or on the computer when they have a lake, fireflies, campfires, canoeing, and loons beckoning outside the door?

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Sebago Lake is the second-largest lake in Maine (the largest is Moosehead Lake). It is located in the south-western area of the state, about 20 miles away from Portland and the airport. “Sebago” is the Penobscot Indian word meaning “beautiful water,” and it truly is one of the most picturesque bodies of water in New England.

When I was little, summer vacation in Maine meant spending as many weeks as I could wheedle, at my Aunt and Uncle’s “camp”, or cabin, on Sebago. My Uncle had a boat, naturally, and we begged on a daily basis for him to pull us (“us” being me and my cousins) behind the boat on the “torpedo” float. We’d line up on the thing, hang on for dear life, and scream our fool heads off as he dragged us along, playing crack the whip or occasionally swerving into his own wake so we could “jump” the torpedo over the waves. Inevitably, one (or all) of us would fall off, and we’d sit there, floating and waiting for him to come back around to us, wondering what could be eyeing our toes from a depth of 300 feet.

Them snapping turtles are vicious, after all.

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