Port Bowen only has one freehold near enough for regular contact, but many others are connected to the city.
The towns of Lewiston and Auburn lie on either side of the Androscoggin River, about half an hour northeast of Port Bowen. This technically puts Lewiston along Courier's Way, but it's close enough to Port Bowen that the couriers don't stop there overnight. Lewiston officially absorbed Auburn around 60 years ago, and their freeholds joined into one.
The freehold here is called Coggincrag Partnership. It's a small city, so Coggincrag Partnership is equally small. It has a tight-knit set of seasonal courts and a minute, but integrated, courtless population. Lewiston is close enough that the Partnership has direct diplomatic ties to the Mist-Burnt Veil. The two are served by the same group of Sacred Couriers and a few other changelings travel back and forth each year.
Bridgton is a small but growing resort town NNW of Port Bowen. Formerly a strong regional manufacturing center, it has pivoted to a resort town which draws many vacationers throughout the year for skiing and nature getaways. The residents, by contrast, live mostly below the poverty line.
The permanent population of Bridgton is just large enough to support a freehold, the Sand Creek Protectorate. Though served by the same couriers as Port Bowen, it has no diplomatic relations with the changelings of Port Bowen or Lewiston. Couriers say the freehold is friendly to strangers.
These freeholds are safe havens along the I-95 interstate in the human world. The Sacred Couriers use them extensively when traveling, enabling some amount of news to get through the state. Few outside of that order travel the route, preferring to stay within their freehold's own borders.
Augusta lies around 50 miles northeast of Port Bowen along the interstate. It's the first safe overnight point for changelings travelling that direction. Like other freeholds on the Courier's Way, Augusta's changelings are served by the same group of Sacred Couriers as Port Bowen. It's a far enough distance that there is no regular travel with the larger city, but the occasional changeling will still make the journey.
Waterville lies 10 miles further Northeast from Augusta. It's the second safe overnight point along Courier's Way. The freehold there is tiny, like Augusta, and strongly dominated by Winter Court. As such, the courtiers there are very secretive and can seem standoffish at first, but they're friendly enough to people who say the right words.
Bangor is the last stop along Courier's Way, around 60 miles further northeast than Waterville. It lies at the crossroads of Interstate Route 95 and Local Highway 2, giving it more mystical significance than its real-world size would suggest. The freehold reflects this and is unusually large. Travel accounts from years gone by say that Bangor's freehold has access to three separate goblin markets and altogether too many trods.
So named because of the lack of friendly freeholds, the Dead Road is the only way north into Quebec. It takes around two and a half hours to get from Skowhegan to Saint-Georges along the roadway, with no relief if things go wrong.
Skowhegan lies just north of Waterville. It's a small crossroads town with a tiny freehold. It's also the last friendly stop within the US on the way to Quebec. Despite being just off of Courier's Way, it's near enough to be served by the same Sacred Couriers as Port Bowen.
This town is a little more than half way along the Dead Road. The Couriers approached the freehold there 30 years ago with an offer to start bringing parcels and messages. The two envoys were attacked. One died, and the other vowed never to return.
The freehold in The Forks is isolationist, to say the least, and does not welcome anyone besides newly-escaped changelings. Their motives and history are unknown. Travellers would do well to drive right on through The Forks and not look back.
Saint-Georges is the first safe town along the Dead Road. It's also the first Canadian town. The freehold is small and predominantly French speaking, but friendly. It's about 117 miles from Skowhegan to Saint-Georges.
This is the typical destination for travelers on the Dead Road. It's a large city with a small, lively freehold. The changelings there are very ceremonial and hold to ornate social customs. Unlike most freeholds, The Ville Libre du Goulet has eight courts: four seasonal, Radiant, Shadow, Dawn, and Dusk. The courtiers are largely bilingual.
It was recently discovered that the Ville Libre du Goulet has access to the Underbridge Goblin Market. Port Bowen's changelings have access as well, so there is some possibility of easier travel in the future. The goblins are sure to take their cut first, so such travel might stay prohibitively expensive.
These freeholds are connected to a Goblin Market that is accessible from Port Bowen. Travel through the markets is vanishingly rare, but strangers sometimes meet among the stalls and exchange news, and gossip.
Millinocket is in the northern middle part of Maine. It connects to Wobtegwa Docklands market through the ancient arch of a long-gone boathouse on Quakish Lake.
Millinocket has good access to Maine's inland waterways and some rural changelings visit from time to time for company and to peruse the market.
Machias is on the eastern coastal tip of Maine. It has a small freehold dominated by water-like kiths: Swimmerskins, Waterborn, and Waterdwellers. They have a door to the Wobtegwa Docklands at a landing on the Songo river.
The goblins of the Underbridge Market claim to do business with changelings from Atlanta. No one from Port Bowen has met such a changeling among the market's stalls, but some are excited to make contact with such a far-flung freehold.
Hub City is one of a few small towns in Wisconsin whose freeholds have formed a regional collective. As their Autumn King tells it, each freehold is too small to stand against much of anything on its own, but by sharing hedge bounties and manpower, they can stave off droughts and enemies alike.
Hub City has a door to the Underbridge Market somewhere within its borders.
Some freeholds are described by travel notes, but the changelings of Port Bowen have not had contact with them in a long time.
Presque Isle and Caribou are the two most northeastern towns in Maine. Spring travellers from years ago left notes with their court about the jovial freeholds they found there, but no one has visited in a long time.
These freeholds have never been contacted by changelings from Port Bowen, and almost nothing is known about them.
Records from 80 or more years ago suggest that a small freehold calls the forests of White Mountain its home. The best guess so far is that they are the remnants of some Native American tribe, perhaps even descendents of the Nodam-Linto freehold which broke from Elkholm in the early 1800s. No one has yet braved the long journey to find out.
Not to be confused with the much more famous Mt. Desert Island, Mt. Deseret (dez-er-AY) Island is a tiny bit of land off of Maine's eastern coast, about two hours northeast of Port Bowen. It's home to a handful of cottages and little else.
Still, there are rumors of faerie power on the island, and where there is faerie power, there is often a freehold wielding it.