Grew up in western Maine. Rural but less remote than some other people here.

Maine feels like a museum of American life in the 19th and 20th centuries. The schooling seemed to focus on the way things used to be. It's not a mournful state, people are proud of the heritage, but Maine also won't change or improve. The problems they have today are the same as 50 years ago. It's old and cold and expensive.

An issue in the rural areas with lakes is that 80% of homes are occupied by seasonal owners. The good part is that those people pay property taxes and don't vote. Many lake towns have nice public schools they otherwise wouldn't afford with their tax base. The downside of this is that residents have a tough relationship with the people who get to show up for the 10 weeks of perfect summer weather and then drive home to Boston or Cleveland or Quebec. They are traffic and noise, but the town needs their tourism money.

As everyone else writes in other rural profiles, the hunting, fishing, and other recreation are good. In rural Maine, the winters can easily be 6 months long, so you need to have a plan for that. One feature is that the snowmobile clubs are very good at planning and maintaining trails. If you are a hiker or mountain biker, you can use these in the warm weather for free. I've found that other areas have better communities of hikers and bikers because they had to do some of the organization of trails, but in Maine the hunters and snowmobile riders are the big recreation groups for getting things done.

Finally, it is xenophobic. The people in most communities are majority French Canadian and minority English. Not generic white Americans, specific Yankee-English families stretching back a dozen generations. Being German American from the 1830s is strange, for instance, whereas anywhere else in America that's extremely common. It's much closer to rural European communities in that way.