Lubec looks at luring vacationers

You might have heard about the Maine Office of Tourism’s latest ad campaign aimed at selling the state as a top-notch vacation land to the people who already live here.

Why look outside Maine, the new TV ads remind us, when the best vacation getaways of all might be the very places that exist right here in our own back yard?

“If you go to Bar Harbor and spend the weekend there, you’re not going to Cape Cod,” said Galen Rose, an economist with the Maine State Planning Office, who thinks Maine people could help boost the state economy by dropping their hard-earned vacation dollars on this side of the border for a change.

While I, too, would agree that Bar Harbor is a great place to spend a weekend, its reputation as a vacation mecca has long been well-established and widespread. The streets of town already crawl in summer with well-heeled tourists who visit the lovely area from all over the world.

So if we’re really committed to the idea of selling Maine to Mainers, which is a good one as gas prices continue to rise, why not give some lesser-known place a shot at reaping some of the tourist bounty? Why not a place that could really use a little economic stimulation? A place with all the strikingly beautiful coastline – 96 miles, to be exact – and other scenic wonders you could ever ask for but have probably never seen?

How about a place like … Lubec?

“Why not Lubec?” said Eve Preston, the town’s economic development director, when I called to see what she thought of marketing her neck of the woods to fellow Mainers. “Come up and stay. We’d love to have you.”

And she doesn’t really care, either, if the vacationers who might flock to her coastal town are from Cape Elizabeth or Connecticut.

“The wealthier the better,” she said, “just as long as they stop.”

Preston likes the idea of marketing out-of-the-way Lubec as a tourist stop so much, in fact, that she came up with a few tongue-in-cheek though uniquely appropriate vacation slogans right over the phone.

“Lubec. Come if you dare.”

“Not for the faint of heart.”

“Hike it if you can find it.”

“Sea-kayaking in the fog – Think you can do it?”

In other words, she said, the most important consideration when selling Maine tourists on the abundant charms of a far-

flung place like Lubec, population 1,652, is making sure that visitors understand exactly what they can expect when they arrive.

“For the average Mainer, Lubec is not an end-point destination in their travels, although we get a lot of people passing through on their way to Campobello Island,” she said. “Lubec doesn’t have the motels with the swimming pools, the waterslides or theme parks. And it’s not exactly the shopping mecca of the world; you have to drive 60 miles just to get a pair of underwear. We do have a pharmacy, though, and two restaurants that are open year-round and a hardware store, in case you need nails.”

Amenities aside, she said, if you do decide to include Lubec on your summer travel itinerary there are a few other things you should know before setting out on your Down East excursion. The locals are not well-versed in the ways of tourism – neither by nature nor opportunity – which means they may not be much help to vacationers who are searching for local recreational opportunities.

“They don’t do the touristy thing up here, and they legitimately may not know where to send you,” Preston said. “If you ask if there’s a favorite fishing hole, for instance, they’ll probably say ‘I don’t think so.’ In fact, don’t even expect people around here to tell you where Lubec is. As a tourist, you’re pretty much on your own here.”

Which, Preston said proudly, is everything that makes Lubec and its neighboring Washington County coastal towns well worth the trip.

“Tourism is beginning to change,” she said. “It’s always been associated with development and attractions. But now there are many people who travel to get away from those things. So there may be just as many people who would want to go to a place like Lubec for what it doesn’t have as there are vacationers who go to end-point destinations for what those places do have.”

She said Lubec’s best selling points, for that matter, may well be its remoteness and inaccessibility.

“You have to be really determined to hike in this area,” she said. “You’re literally on your own. No ranger shacks, no first-aid stations, which makes this a good area for extreme sports and rugged solo adventures, a place where you can really test yourself outdoors or just sit in a cabin and breathe. We’re really wide open for that kind of tourist activity. Just make sure you bring along everything you need.”