1. Yarmouth Clam Festival
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Annual Events & Festivals
Telephone: (207) 846-3984
Address: 162 Main St.
Description: How many clams does it cost to get into the Yarmouth Clam Festival? Not many. In fact, most of the entertainments at this three-day Greater Portland favorite are free. Not quite as huge as the Maine Lobster Festival, the clam festival has been packing people in since it was founded in the mid-1960s. Kids and teenagers are naturally drawn to the midway set up by Smokey’s Greater Shows, with all the arcade games, rides, cotton candy, and questionable carnies you could want. Younger folks like the parade as well. Everyone enjoys the firefighters’ muster, the Maine State Clam Shucking Contest, and the street dancing. Parents are fond of the art show on the library lawn, the “pink elephant” sale across from the First Parish Church, and the live music on stages across the village in the evening. Good times for everyone and loads and loads of clams, sold to benefit various sports teams and community organizations.
2. Women To Women
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (207) 846-6163, (800) 798-7902
Address: 3 Marina Road
Description: Located in a quiet suburb of Portland, Women to Women has provided revolutionary health care to women for more than 20 years. The health care clinic was founded by Christiane Northrup, MD; Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP; Mary Ellen Fenn, MD; and Annie Rafter, NP. It bills itself as one of the first clinics in the world dedicated to health care for women, by women.Health practitioners at Women to Women focus on the causes, rather than the symptoms, of illness and stress natural and preventive health care. Clinic staff specialize in hormonal imbalance, premature aging, degenerative and autoimmune diseases, nutrition and digestion, breast health, and depression. The clinic prides itself on helping a woman’s body regain the power to heal itself. The Women to Women clinic has developed a natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy called the Women to Women’s Personal Program.
3. Sandy Point Beach
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Address: Cousins Island
Description: Not too many people know about this short stretch of sand on Casco Bay’s Cousins Island, part of the town of Yarmouth and attached by a bridge. Right below where the bridge meets the isle, there’s a beach good enough for dipping. A small parking area is available here, as is a boat launch. Not much, but it gets increasingly more difficult to find beaches from here to Popham Beach State Park.
4. Royal River Grillhouse
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (207) 846-1226
Address: 106 Lafayette St.
Description: The restaurateur behind this local favorite learned his trade from Sam Hayward, the chef at the extraordinarily popular Fore Street in Portland. Which is a good thing, when you consider that he’s running a grill where seafood is prominent on the menu. This place is quite popular, getting people talking about dishes like wood-grilled yellowfin tuna, sautéed Prince Edward Island mussels, fresh Maine crab cakes, and warm spinach and Maine shrimp salad. The menu changes nightly. Everything is presented in a nice dining room overlooking the Royal River, and there are tables on the deck in summer. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Reservations are a good idea.
5. Bay Square At Yarmouth
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Retirement
Telephone: (207) 846-0044 or (888) 374-67
Address: 27 Forest Falls Dr.
Description: Benchmark Quality is a big national corporation with dozens of assisted-living communities in New York and New England. The company’s Maine offering is in the Greater Portland community of Yarmouth, 15 or 20 minutes north of the Forest City and just south of Freeport. Bay Square is a 60-unit assisted-living center housed in a big building it describes as a “grand seaside inn,” and it has a specialized program for the memory-impaired. Studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments are available for rent, and three meals are offered daily. The facilities are right on the Royal River and include a white-linen dining room, walking trails, a beauty salon, a library, a country kitchen, and a sunporch. Exercise programs are there to be enjoyed on a daily basis, and there is a full social calendar. The staff offers 24-hour nursing support as well as all the housekeeping and maintenance services anyone could want. There’s a $2,300 entrance fee, and rents range from $4,300 to $5,900.
6. F. O. Bailey Antiquarians
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 781-8001
Address: 11 Yarmouth Crossing
Description: Long the name in Portland antiques—it claims to be Maine’s oldest business, founded in 1819—F. O. Bailey specializes in fine furniture, rugs, and art, and the place hosts auctions regularly as well. Now off peninsula in Yarmouth.
7. Delorme Map Store
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (800) 642-0970
Address: 2 DeLorme Dr.
Description: Stop at the DeLorme Map Store in Yarmouth on your way north—you can’t miss it, it’s the place with the three-story, glowing globe—and you won’t get lost during your Maine travels. Famous in the state for its indispensable Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, DeLorme sells that book of maps and so many others in the store at its headquarters. You can buy maps for every state, travel guides, globes, world maps, GPS accessories, software, and more. Plus you can check out Eartha, reportedly the world’s largest rotating globe.
8. Maine Cottage Furniture
City: Yarmouth, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 846-3699
Address: 106 Lafayette St.
Description: You know that feeling of relaxation and contentment you get when you hit the cottage by the shore for a week’s vacation? Somehow Maine Cottage Furniture has managed to distill that and paint it onto their line of colorful, whimsical home furnishings. From beds to desks, dining tables to wicker, the company’s “spirited furniture” is fun and stylish and reminiscent of lazy days on the coast. You might not feel as good when you see the prices, though.