The Maine Agenda, Edition #1
The insider guide to Greater Portland's best. One email a week. You'll know about it before everyone else.
Hi, and welcome to the first edition.
Here is the deal with The Maine Agenda. We cover the golf, the courts, the tables, the trails, and the weekends worth your time within about 25 minutes of downtown Portland. We are not a tourist board, and nobody pays us for a kind word. When a place is coasting on its reputation, we say so. When something is genuinely worth your Saturday, we tell you exactly why. Credibility is the entire product.
We held off saying hello until we had something worth opening. There are now more than sixty honest, fact-checked guides on the site, every venue verified as open before we published. Three of them are the reason we finally hit send.
The three we built from scratch
Most local coverage is a rewrite of the same press releases. These three are original reporting, the kind of thing you can only get by counting the courts yourself and reading the county property records.
Every outdoor pickleball court in Greater Portland, mapped. We went town by town and counted the actual nets, surfaces, and lights. Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth has eight permanent-net courts. Payson Park has lights and a keypad code most players do not know about. Scarborough is adding courts this month. If you play, this is the map to keep. → https://themaineagenda.com/outdoor-pickleball-courts-greater-portland-mapped/
What it actually costs to live here, in real numbers. Not a national average, not vibes. The 2026 Cumberland County median sale price, the real Portland mill rate after the revaluation, the state income brackets, what a kilowatt-hour really runs, the gas price this week. If you or a friend is weighing a move, this is the honest math nobody puts in one place. → https://themaineagenda.com/portland-maine-cost-of-living/
Who actually designed the golf courses you play. A course-by-course map of Greater Portland golf by architect and era. The cheapest muni in the region, Riverside, is a Wayne Stiles Golden-Age design that has hosted more Maine Opens than any course in the state. Golden-Age pedigree cuts right across the public and private line, and we show you where. → https://themaineagenda.com/golf-course-architecture-maine/
The two events worth planning around
The rest of July has a lot going on, but two things are worth actually building a weekend around.
The Yarmouth Clam Festival, July 17 to 19. Free to get in, about fifteen minutes north, running since the 1960s. The food is run by local nonprofits and it is the rare big event locals love rather than tolerate. Park at a shuttle lot and ride in. Our full guide has the parade timing and the third-Friday rule. → https://themaineagenda.com/yarmouth-clam-festival-guide/
TD Beach to Beacon, August 1. The 10K Joan Benoit Samuelson founded, from Cape Elizabeth to Portland Head Light, one of the best road races in the country. Even if you are not running, the course and the finish are worth knowing. Our guide covers how to actually get an entry. → https://themaineagenda.com/td-beach-to-beacon-10k-guide/
A few honest things worth knowing
- The cold truth about our beaches. Maine ocean water in early summer is a dare, not a swim. The guide tells you which beach is worth the parking headache and where the resident-only lots will get you. → https://themaineagenda.com/best-beaches-near-portland-maine/
- Lobster in the rough. The lobster roll in town is great, but on a hot afternoon the move is a working lobster shack with a water view and a paper tray. We mapped the ones worth the drive. → https://themaineagenda.com/lobster-shacks-pounds-near-portland-maine/
- Live music almost every night. From the marquee shows on the water at Thompson's Point to a free Saturday series up in Freeport, we sorted the summer lineup so you know which nights are worth leaving the house for. → https://themaineagenda.com/summer-concerts-live-music-portland-maine/
What you can expect from us
One email a week, usually toward the end of it. New openings, the tee times worth booking, the tables worth fighting for, and an honest read on whether the new hyped thing is actually any good. No fluff, no advertorials, no fake enthusiasm. If a week is quiet, you get a short email, not a padded one.
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See you next week, The Maine Agenda
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