The obsession began a few years ago, when my wife and I were wandering around a beachside state park, took a left turn through the car-camping area, and there it was, surrounded by snorting, hulking condos on wheels: A vintage Westfalia, one of those pop-top camper vans that Volks-wagen manufactured during the latter half of the 20th century. You can still see them all over the West Coast, but finding one in these parts is like coming across a rare tropical parrot. This one was a honey, with a custom wood interior that whispered “road-sloop” where while the neighboring RVs were screaming “land-yacht.”
So when it came time for our Empty Nesters’ Victory Tour — both children successfully launched into post-high school existence and away for the summer — my wife and I decided to test that obsession by turning it, briefly, into reality. Why not rent a Westfalia and cruise it up the coast of Maine and into Canada? There had to be places you could lease the vehicle by the week.
It turns out that, in all of New England, there’s only one: Maine Campers (mainecampers.com), run by Jim Doolittle from his home in Eliot, Maine, just over the border from Portsmouth, N.H. He has a fleet of six Westfalias ranging from ’85s to ’91s, and he rents them for $175 a day. It’s a fair enough deal when you consider you’re saving on lodging and dining: Each van comes with a propane stove, a propane-fueled fridge, a sink, and two sleeping areas — one a fold-out back seat and the other an upper berth accessible when the top is popped up at a 45-degree angle. Bonus: We could bring the dog, a mildly neurotic rescue Labradoodle.
Day 1: We pick up the van — a brown 1986 Westfalia Vanagon — in Eliot, familiarize ourselves with its peculiarities, and hit the road for Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. This is late June, before the coastal season has really begun, and crowds are few. We arrive at the remote Southwest Harbor campground at dusk and go searching for dinner, finally locating the funky roadside seafood joint Sawyer’s Lobster Pound, now called Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound because Charlotte kicked Sawyer out. We get there just before closing, partake of lightly fried haddock and BYO wine, and then Charlotte leads us out to the field behind, silently pointing out a fawn that has been temporarily stashed in the tall grass by its mother.
Day 2: We’re not bothering with the propane refrigerator — the plastic cooler serves us fine — but the stove is perfect for coffee and light breakfast. Then, uh-oh: Funny red lights are blinking on the dashboard, a reminder that we’re driving a 30-year-old vehicle with, like all Westfalias, creative upkeep. We call Jim, who arranges for a visit with a Bar Harbor mechanic, and we then spend the day hiking Pemetic Mountain, with its gob-stopping panoramic views of the midcoast islands. Afterward, a 90-minute visit to the mechanic results in a new alternator (paid for by Jim), a free extra rental day, and a tour of the Westfalia’s inner workings. Who knew the engine was hanging low in the back? It’s all good, and to cap the day, we decide to park all night atop Cadillac Mountain and watch the sun rise. Is this legal? There are no signs that say “yes” and no signs that say “no,” so we drive up the mountain at sunset and bunk down.
Day 3: We wake at 4 a.m. to a fair-sized crowd that has driven up for one of the first spots in the United States hit by the sun’s rays. Standing O for an excellent sunrise: It feels like we’re at the laserium, but it’s real. After locating a pay-as-you-go shower, we’re off to Campobello Island, just over the Canadian border, where we pull up to a bucolic oceanfront campsite in Herring Cove Provincial Park. The Bay of Fundy at our feet, local sausages on the grill — this is the life. It’s also the evening we discover the top berth is far more comfortable for sleeping than the fold-out rear seats, if infinitely more confusing to our dog, who can’t figure out where we’ve gone.
Day 4: We tour Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Campobello summer home, where the docents are deeply knowledgeable and refreshingly wacky. Then it’s on the road again to Saint John, New Brunswick, a gritty working-class city a little closer to Mad Max’s Gastown — it’s the headquarters of Irving Oil — than a tourist destination. No matter: We pull the van up at the Homeport Historic Inn, a remarkable hilltop B&B fashioned from two conjoined mansions built by shipbuilding brothers in the 1850s. The beds are comfortable, hosts Ralph and Karen Holyoke engaging, the rooms decorated with just the right amount of bric-a-brac. Dinner in downtown Saint John, at the East Coast Bistro, will turn out to be the best meal of our trip. Grace note: We park next to a Westfalia that looks exactly like ours, prompting us to wonder if we have, in fact, passed through the looking glass.
Day 5: After a brief stop at Saint John’s City Market to buy Turkish takeout and the dried seaweed known as dulse, we motor farther up the coast to Fundy National Park, a 80-square-mile expanse of rugged coast and deep forest. Here’s where we discover a downside to being the automotive equivalent of a turtle, taking our home with us wherever we go: We drive to a trailhead for a three-hour hike, and when we return, another family has set up tents in our assigned and paid-for campsite. A very polite Canadian confrontation ensues; we get our site back.
Day 6: Rain. Oh, dear. We explore farther up the coast to the Hopewell Rocks, surreal seaside pillars carved by the Bay of Fundy’s famous tides. The rangers chase us back up the bluffs before the tides roll in; I do believe they haven’t lost a tourist yet. Back near the park campsite, in the small fishing town of Alma, we goggle at the lobster boats marooned on the ocean floor at low tide and take refuge from the weather at Octopus’s Garden Cafe, a coffee shop-restaurant run by congenial local hipsters. We tank up on Wi-Fi and homemade pasta — another unexpected terrific meal. Afterward, we run into yet another Westfalia that looks like ours but is owned by a retired couple from South Carolina. The husband is rather put out when I prove unable to talk replacement motors and structural improvements.
Day 7: With a sigh, we turn the Westfalia south and start the long trek home. Did I mention it’s a standard and drives with the balletic elegance of an overloaded school bus? Did I also mention we’re having the time of our lives? We pull up in the quaint, coastal town of St. Andrews — at the end of its pre-high season hibernation, it looks a little like Provincetown after the Rapture has taken everyone away. Uh-oh again; the dashboard warning lights are back on and we’re losing power. Another call to Jim and a visit to another mechanic; this time it’s the battery, which is located, for reasons best known to German engineers, under the passenger seat. By now, I’m expecting to find the fan belt on the roof. An hour and we’re on our way; there will be no third time unlucky and we remain in a forgiving mood. We camp in perhaps the prettiest KOA site I’ve ever seen, right on Passamaquoddy Bay, next to a French Canadian couple whose poodle wants to do a “Lady and the Tramp” number with our dog.
Day 8: Just off St. Andrews is Ministers Island, home of a mansion built by the head of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (it’s now a museum), a baroque old barn, and miles of hiking trails. There’s no road and you can only get there at low tide, so we pilot the Westfalia over the rocky salt-flats like a crazed Duckboat. A photo we took during the crossing is what remains burned in my memory as this trip’s iconic image: The Westfalia in long shot on a desolate strand, boxy and potent with wanderlust. Later that day, we’ll cross back into the States — the Customs officials eyeing our vehicle warily, as though it were some kind of mobile meth lab — and wend our way back home. We’ll be back, to this area and in this vehicle. But I’ll probably double-check the alternator first.