8 Rules That Decide Whether Mainers Will Ever Stop Calling You ‘From Away’

Moving to a new place is the easy part. Feeling like you belong can take a lot longer.

In Maine, a newcomer can be “from away” for years, and Mainers don’t always agree on what ends it.

Here’s what people say can shift that label.

1. Birthplace

Maine Magazine‘s lingo guide defines “from away” as a non-native person, which puts your birthplace first.

Cary Tyson, a newcomer with more than five years in the state, wrote in a 2022 Press Herald column that he wasn’t born in Maine and is, yes, from away.

Many locals still start with birthplace when they size up a newcomer.

Your birth certificate doesn’t change.

Where the line gets fuzzy is a child who arrives as a toddler, a question Victoria Hugo-Vidal raised in a 2020 column.

2. Three Generations

The guide adds a family test: Someone from away lacks roots going back three-plus generations.

By that definition, a baby born to two newcomers wouldn’t have three generations behind them.

If you moved to Maine as an adult, you can’t add generations to your family.

That’s the catch.

Irv Williams moved to Maine in 1973, and he reflected on being from away after almost 50 years in a 2023 Maine Voices column.

Time alone didn’t do it for Williams.

3. Staying Year-Round

Dana Wilde’s 2022 Island Journal essay ties “from away” to the well-off summer people who came to Maine.

A class gap separated well-off summer people from the locals who worked for them.

Class drew the line.

Staying year-round gets you off the summer-people list, not off the from-away one.

The phrase is largely just a punchline nowadays.

4. Family Connections

Carlene Hill Byron, a 10th-generation Mainer, wrote about being from away in a 2022 Press Herald column.

She describes it as a way of saying which family networks a person belongs to, not as a rejection.

People place each other through relatives, the way someone might ask whether you once babysat somebody’s kids.

Relatives come up first.

If you’re new, your relatives aren’t on that map yet.

In North Carolina, Byron was treated as from away until she discovered her father had Southern ancestry.

5. Plates and Phone Numbers

If you want to stop being “from away,” a 2022 Boston.com guide says to get a new Maine license plate, and to make it a vanity plate if you want to fit in.

Maine has among the nation’s highest adoption levels of vanity plates.

The state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles requires a Maine license within 30 days of the day you become a resident.

The guide also recommends a cellphone number with a 207 area code, the one for the entire state.

A plate and a 207 number both read as signs you’ve settled in.

They’re quick fixes.

6. Listening First

Listening comes before changing anything, according to RJ Heller, a Maine writer who is from away himself.

In a 2025 essay in the Bangor Daily News, he tells newcomers to listen to the locals and then listen some more.

That’s harder than it sounds.

He wanted to close an old fishing trail that crossed his property.

A local friend told him that wasn’t how people in that community handled it.

If you buy land with a trail on it, ask your neighbors before you close it.

Ask first.

7. Showing Up

Heller’s answer to “from away” is to contribute whenever and however you can.

He ends the essay by saying he may never be a Mainer and is happy to be part of the place and contribute to it.

Pitch in anyway.

Katie Shorey of Live and Work in Maine told Down East in 2023 that Maine runs on relationships more than on transactions.

So if you’re new, the habit worth building is turning up for people before you need anything from them.

8. Weathering Winter

Winter is part of the answer to “from away” in Victoria Hugo-Vidal’s 2020 Press Herald column.

She counts you as a Mainer if you’ve chosen to invest your time, energy and life in Maine and to put up with the winters.

That makes it a choice.

A 2022 Boston.com guide to fitting in covers the weather too: It says to master layering and, when in doubt, to shop at L.L.Bean.

Carmen McPhail of the Maine Association of REALTORS said newcomers should be prepared for the weather.

When the Rules Disagree

The rules for shedding “from away” don’t agree with each other.

Hugo-Vidal wrote that people also wave off other residents over politics or where in the state they live, with Portland as her example.

Tyson doesn’t expect to be seen as anything but from away unless someone in a leadership role works to remove the term from the state’s vocabulary.

Williams hopes the state will do away with the notion of folks from away.

The Bangor Daily News editorial board called for an end to the phrase in 2024.

Maine is falling far short of its goal of attracting 75,000 new workers by the end of the decade.

One town is acting.

Houlton residents are working to end the “from away” attitude that has driven some new residents from the Aroostook County town.

'Welcome Home' Sign

Maine Public's Maine Calling aired an episode in 2023 on who is moving to Maine and why Mainers call them "from away."

Earlier, in 2019, Gov. Janet Mills had the welcome sign on the Maine Turnpike in Kittery replaced with one reading "Welcome Home".

The sign it replaced carried the "Open for Business" tagline.

The wording changed.