I just returned from vacation to an island off the coast of Maine, where I took my family to the island’s museum on Friday. It’s an excellent museum featuring artwork, history, and plenty of maps and old photographs of this old fishing and lobstering island that also became a summer vacation haven.

Monhegan Island is an excellent place to bring kids on vacation because it gives parents an actual break. This is a place you can bring your kids and ignore them. Our kids spent the week fishing, hiking, drinking root beer, and jumping off the wharf or the cliffs into the harbor, all while Katie and I napped, read, walked on our own, or had lunch at the brewery.