Ovens Mouth Preserve is the perfect hike for new hikers, kid hikers, or anyone who wants to get into the woods for couple hours (with a lunch stop at a perfectly placed bench overlooking the water) for a leisurely and supremely scenic hike.
If you've been to Pawtuckaway already - located in Nottingham, New Hampshire, about an hour and a half from Portland - then I don't need to tell you about its charming moss-covered forest floor, its enormous glacial erratics, its mellow ponds and rad fire tower.
Stationed inside the Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area, just south of Baxter State Park, the ice caves were created by glaciers during the Ice Age and now we humans can climb inside and pretend to hunt for bones and monsters.
Holt Pond Preserve is a scenic and quiet place with an impressive diversity of terrain. You can wander through forest,
Borestone Mountain Audubon Sanctuary offers a pretty rockin' hike up Borestone Mountain and a small Nature Center chock full of outdoor education - from animal ID to insect life cycles, rocks and leaves and skulls and a selection of scat common to the area.