Burnt out on Brooklyn? You could get paid to move to Maine

To live in New York is to routinely ponder leaving New York. There are plenty of other places to live; some cities make fine locales for a casual absconding, and others, not so much. The general rule is that you are always free to leave, so long as you don’t write an essay about it afterwards.

The state of Maine, whether desperate for bodies or eager to expedite the Brooklynification of their larger cities (err, city), has set a cunning lobster trap for any errant vacationers who were maybe starting to feel like, hey, getting into dodge is really the better idea. “Visit For a Week, Stay for a Lifetime” is a real campaign that promises to reimburse a week’s worth of trip expenses for any visitors to the state who end up dropping anchor along the rocky coast, aka, securing employment and relocating permanently. Maybe you’ve always fancied yourself to be a rugged, no-nonsense type, or you’re looking for your own L.L. Bean boyfriend? Vacationland is calling your name.

The initiative was conceived by Live and Work in Maine, a job recruitment site that lists the profiles of more than 100 employers that are participating in the incentive. It’s not all shipyards and seafood shacks (unfortunately); there is a whole range of industries represented!

You could work at Bates, Bowdoin or Colby colleges; get a gig at L.L. Bean or the e-commerce startup Wayfair. For outdoorsy, environmentally-minded types, there’s the Appalachian Mountain Club, a nonprofit that works to achieve land conservation in the 100-mile Wilderness and Moosehead Lake region; and for those who like to work with their hands, there’s Barn Boards and More, a family-owned operation that makes furniture from recycled barn wood. Simply browsing these opportunities is giving me wanderlust; maybe I can start a Brokelyn outpost? There is a Brooklin, Maine, after all.

If you’re serious about moving away—or just having a bad day and need to distract yourself with some aspirational daydreaming—have a look at the job offerings, send in a couple applications, and get thee to the land of lobstah for a week of boatin’, eatin’, drinkin’, and terrible impressions—possibly the most confounding accent in the country up there. And even if you’re not planning on leaving Brooklyn any time soon, you should still take a vacation in Maine anyway, because it’s a wondrous place, and anything can happen. Just remember to save your receipts.

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