In The Pines

At Maine’s Quisisana, The Joy Is In The Turning Off And Tuning Out  

It’s rare, in the world of travel writing, that a writer is afforded the opportunity to return to a place more than once. For all the luxury and mystique of the job, there is one thing we are frequently denied, and that is the familiar. Jetting back and forth to the newest, shiniest, and most exciting destination is our bread and butter. What’s next? Whatever is new and different, naturally. 

In the summer of 2022, my family and I headed up to Maine for a week, to a resort that my father had visited decades before, when he, too, was in his early 40s. My husband, kids, and I sank into the analog comfort of a week in the pines at Quisisana, a family-owned spot on Kezar Lake, a nexus of activity that is not at all like the activity back home. There, the social scene is dominated by waterski boats and evenings with fellow travelers, commiserating over sunset on a porch that stretches into dusk. Adults eat peanuts and drink glasses of wine. Kids play Skee-Ball and are afforded the rare freedom to run unattended in the woods. 

When we were invited back, in July of 2023, we leapt at the chance. 

The rustic green and white cabins of Quisisana are joyful — the understated luxury that someone who has gone to camp without hot water will appreciate in adulthood (Quisisana does have hot water, and alcohol, and candy, some of the things you may have been denied as a camper, but can now have as a “just visiting” grown-up who still wants to have camp memories at arm’s-length). Maine burrows itself in the soul. The blueberry bushes that line the pathways are a signature part of the state’s experience. Is this a hotel? An opportunity to commune with nature? Why not both. 

Each day, meals are served in the main dining room. Guests sit at an assigned table and are served by the same rotating team of servers. If there’s a birthday, the staff — most of whom have come to Maine to perform in the finely honed series of weekly operas, musicals, and shows — will sing. They come from all over the country to perform in this summer stock, of sorts. By day, they are servers, or waterfront attendants, or housekeepers. By night, they strap on knee-high pleather boots and kick back and belt out the tunes from Kinky Boots. 

There’s a Borscht Belt feel to Quisisana. You could be in the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1980s, the 1990s. Every family’s cabin and address is recorded by hand, stored in a plastic index card box holder. Your reservation will exist there, for safe keeping, for life. The Orans family, who runs Quisisana, will be able to let you know where you stayed last year, or the year before, should you have a preference, say, for a cabin with a living room and a fireplace, or a cabin that faces the lake directly. 

Up in the main lodge, there are board games and books for borrowing. There are computers, should you need to check an email or remind yourself that the real world exists. Every once in a while, I did this, though I shouldn’t have; whenever my inbox replenished, at alarming speed, I felt the pang of the real-world return, the suffocation of it. There’s a reason that Quisisana encourages its guests to disconnect, to recover from digital overload in the comfort of tall pines, ice-cold lake water, and evening performances in the company of new friends. 

New England had its rainiest summer perhaps ever, but we didn’t mind. My sons waterskied daily, on a particularly glassy lake. In the evenings, they marched off to Treble Hall, the children’s activity room, where they readied their own talent show for a last night performance. We, too, were busy, eating chef Andrew Vogel’s food: steamed lobster one night, lamb saddle another. 

A week goes by too fast. That’s one thing we discovered during our second visit to Quisi. The rituals — and they had, in fact, become rituals at this point — felt settled into our bones. Pretty soon it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Then, it was time to say goodbye all over again. For all the trips my husband and children and I had taken across the world (villas perched on pristine beaches; elephants tearing across the plains), this was one we were so sad to let go of. What if we didn’t make it back again? The thought of that was almost too heavy to bear.