The options for recreation minded people are significant in this varied region. Visitors and residents may choose from backcountry remote hiking and backpacking in the Mt. Kahtadin region of Maine, the White Mountain and Green Mountain regions of New Hampshire and Vermont to the Adirondacks of New York. Or campers may choose to car camp at thousands of private and public camping areas or simply sightsee from their vehicles. Others may choose to hunt and fish or boat in the millions of acres of public and private land open to the public and the thousands of lakes and ponds and thousands of miles of rivers in the region. Developed resorts for downhill skiing, cross country skiing and thousands of miles of groomed snowmobile trails await those who wish to explore the winter forest. 

Although recreation use is expanding in the Northern Forest as the 70 million people within a day’s drive of the region have more disposable income and find the “wildness” of the region attractive, the area has been home to recreationists since the late 1800s when trains carried city dwellers from Boston and New York to the grand hotels and camps found throughout the region.