2 of 2

Write now Article Tools

Honking horns, innumerable crowds of people and lines of traffic stretching to the horizon are not the first things one thinks of when describing life in rural Western Maine. And yet these decidedly urban sights and sounds are precisely what I have experienced every year in the quaint town of Fryeburg, Maine, as the summer season draws to an end and the Fryeburg Fair comes to town.

You might hear of a traditional county fair and think of hay rides, fresh produce and pumpkin contests. And as a child, the week of the Fryeburg Fair was one of sheer delight: the leaves begin to glow bright yellow and fiery red, and bails of hay appear scattered across the farmers' fields. The town comes to life, and with the Autumn chill come the tourists.
As I grew older I lost some of the delight and wonder that had shaped my childhood experience of Fair Week, and came to be not delighted, but rather annoyed, as the local pizza shops and ice cream stands filled up with visitors from around the country. The roads become congested and the main street going by my house (and, significantly, by the fairgrounds) becomes a 24-hour source of noise.
I was sitting on my porch one day in October, watching on the first day of the fair as a line of stopped traffic made its yearly pilgrimage by my front lawn toward the fairgrounds. As I looked on in tired annoyance, I was shaken from my staring by a man who was calling to me from the passenger seat of his pickup truck.
"Do you rent rooms?" he yelled in desperation.
"Do I what?" I called back, confused.
"Do you rent rooms? We'll pay you for a room!"
"Sorry, no," I stammered.
And yet I began to think. I have plenty of extra rooms, and plenty of lawn space, too. I quickly made preparations and cleared the flamingo lawn ornaments from the yard. I put up a sign by the road advertising convenient parking for the fair at a competitive price. People began pulling into my yard, and today, I earn thousands of dollars from parking fees during fair week alone.
The next step I took was to rent my extra rooms to tourists who were in town for the week of the fair. This proved to be simple enough; most of my guests are people who have also parked on my front lawn. When they return at the end of the night, there's an offer of a warm bed waiting for them inside which, at the end of a long day at the fair, is worth its weight in gold.
The following year, I took my advertising campaign one step beyond a mere sign on my front lawn. I published a free post on Craigslist

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Experiences with renting out a primary residence for local events?
We want to hear your view. Write now!