Green Mountain Peaks

Discover Vermont, One Story at a Time 🏔️

Local culture, season adventures, small towns,
and the honest side of life in the Green Mountains

Category: Things to Do

Discover the best activities, destinations, and experiences across Vermont. From scenic hikes and hidden swimming holes to local shops and weekend events, these are the things worth adding to your itinerary.

  • Vermont’s Best Swimming Spots for Families

    Vermont’s Best Swimming Spots for Families

    By the second week of July, the parking pull off along Route 17 for Bristol Falls fills up by ten in the morning. You will see coolers being hauled down the short path, toddlers in water shoes gripping a parent’s hand, and teenagers already perched on the ledge above the main pool, working up the nerve to jump. This is what a Vermont summer looks like once the mud season mud has dried and the rivers finally warm past the point of gasping.

    Finding the best swimming spots in Vermont for families is not really about finding water. Vermont has water everywhere, rivers cutting through granite, glacial lakes tucked into the mountains, and a long shoreline on Lake Champlain. The real trick is matching the spot to the kids you are bringing. A six year old who wants a sandy shelf to wade into is looking for a very different afternoon than a twelve year old hoping to jump off a rock ledge.

    What are the best swimming holes in Vermont for families?

    Bartlett Falls, which most locals still call Bristol Falls, sits just south of Bristol village on the New Haven River. It is one of the most photographed swimming holes in the state for a reason. The water fans out below a wide ledge into a deep, calm pool, and there is enough flat rock around the edges for a whole extended family to spread out towels and a picnic. It gets crowded on hot weekends, so if you want space for little ones to wade in the shallower side pockets, arrive before eleven.

    Warren Falls, on the Mad River just off Route 100 in Warren, is really four waterfalls stacked along the same stretch of river, each dropping into its own pool. Families with younger kids should stick to the lowest pool. It has a gravelly, shallow entry that lets small children get used to the current without being anywhere near the ledges the older teenagers are jumping from upstream. Bring water shoes here, the riverbed is rocky rather than sandy.

    Bolton Potholes, along Joiner Brook off Route 2 between Richmond and Waterbury, is a series of five carved granite pools connected by short falls. The lower pools are gentle enough for cautious swimmers, while the upper ones ask for more confidence in the water. It is a short, easy walk in from the road, which makes it one of the more manageable options if you are hauling gear for a whole family.

    Further south, Buttermilk Falls in Ludlow offers a gentler alternative for families who want the look of a waterfall swimming hole without quite as much current. The falls step down in a series of smaller drops, and the pools at the base stay calm enough for younger kids to paddle around while older siblings scramble along the rocks above.

    A note on swimming hole safety

    None of these river spots have lifeguards. Water levels and current strength change fast after rain, and rocks stay slick even on a dry day. It is worth doing a quick scout of the pool yourself before letting kids in, and keeping an eye on where the current pulls hardest. These are wild spots, not managed beaches, and that is a big part of their charm, but it means the supervision is entirely on you.

    Which Vermont state park has the best beach for kids?

    If a managed, sandy beach sounds better than a granite ledge, Vermont’s state parks are the move. Waterbury Center State Park, on the Waterbury Reservoir, has a wide sand beach with calm, mostly current free water and lifeguards on duty during the summer season. It is one of the more reliable choices if you want the peace of mind that comes with a trained eye on the water while you are unpacking the cooler.

    Emerald Lake State Park, tucked into a marble valley near Dorset, has a sandy beach and shallow, clear water that warms up nicely by midsummer. There is no lifeguard here, so it rewards families who are comfortable supervising their own kids, but the shallow gradient near shore makes it a forgiving spot for younger swimmers. You can also rent canoes, kayaks, and paddle boats right at the park, which turns a simple swim into a full afternoon.

    Green River Reservoir State Park, north of Morrisville, is the wilder option. It has nineteen miles of mostly undeveloped shoreline and a backcountry feel, with access mostly by canoe or kayak to the remote tent sites scattered around the water. It is a better fit for families with older kids who already paddle confidently, rather than a first swim trip with toddlers.

    Is Lake Champlain good for swimming with families?

    Lake Champlain has more personality than people expect from a lake this size, and its shoreline offers a range of family swimming spots depending on how sheltered you want the water to be. Sand Bar State Park in Milton has a shallow, sandy swim area on the causeway between the mainland and South Hero, with water that stays warm and calm enough for young children to wade well out from shore.

    Closer to Burlington, North Beach has a long stretch of sand, a snack bar, and enough space that even a busy summer weekend does not feel packed in. Further south, Kingsland Bay State Park near Ferrisburgh offers a smaller, quieter beach on a protected cove, which tends to draw fewer crowds than the beaches right in Burlington.

    What to know about Lake Champlain water quality

    Lake Champlain occasionally deals with cyanobacteria blooms in late summer, particularly after warm, still stretches of weather. Most of the public beaches post advisories when conditions warrant it, so it is worth a quick check before you head out on a hot August day, especially if you are bringing kids who tend to swallow a mouthful of lake water without thinking twice about it.

    When is the water actually warm enough to swim in Vermont?

    This catches a lot of visitors off guard. Vermont’s rivers and lakes are fed by snowmelt, and at higher elevations that melt lingers into June. A swimming hole that looks perfect in a photo can still be shockingly cold through Memorial Day and into early June, especially anywhere north or at elevation in the Green Mountains. By the Fourth of July, most rivers and lakes have warmed enough for comfortable family swimming, and the window really opens up through August.

    Lakes tend to hold their warmth longer into September than the rivers do, since moving water cools faster once the nights start getting crisp again. If you are planning a Labor Day trip, a lake beach like Emerald Lake or Waterbury Center is a safer bet for warm water than a mountain swimming hole.

    What should families pack for a Vermont swimming day?

    • Water shoes, especially for river spots with rocky bottoms like Warren Falls and Bolton Potholes
    • A dry bag for phones and car keys if you are hiking in to a swimming hole
    • Sun protection, since many of these spots have very little shade right at the water
    • A change of clothes for the ride home, because someone always ends up more soaked than planned

    Bug spray is worth throwing in too. The walk in to spots like Bolton Potholes or Green River Reservoir can run through brushy areas where deer flies show up right on schedule in July. For the fuller rundown beyond swim days, see our Vermont summer packing checklist.

    Making a full day of it

    Most of these swimming spots sit close enough to a general store or a small town center that you can turn the trip into more than just a swim. Bristol has a village green worth a walk after you dry off, along with a creemee stand that tends to have a line by early afternoon in July. Warren sits a few minutes from the shops along the Mad River Valley’s stretch of Route 100. Dorset, near Emerald Lake, has a walkable center with a bookstore and a couple of good lunch spots if the kids need a break from the water before you head home.

    If you are coming up from out of state, it is worth building a swimming stop into a bigger loop rather than treating it as the whole day. A morning at Bristol Falls pairs naturally with an afternoon poking around Middlebury. A swim at Sand Bar State Park fits neatly alongside a visit to the Champlain Islands, where the pace slows down even further than the mainland. Vermont rewards this kind of loose planning, since almost nowhere in the state is more than an hour from another swimming spot worth knowing about.

    There is something particular about the sound of a Vermont swimming hole on a July afternoon, water moving over rock, kids shrieking at the cold on first entry, someone’s radio playing too far away to make out the song.

    Shop Green Mountain Peaks on Etsy

    Bring a little piece of Vermont into your home with our curated collection of gifts, apparel, and seasonal favorites. From cozy hoodies and crewnecks to Vermont-themed gift boxes and cookbooks, each item is designed to celebrate the Green Mountain spirit.

    • Vermont-inspired designs and gift sets
    • Printed and packaged with care
    • Ships directly to your door
    Visit Our Etsy Shop

    Discover gifts, apparel, and Vermont treasures made to share and enjoy year-round.

  • Explore Vermont’s Top Breweries, Cideries, and Distilleries

    Explore Vermont’s Top Breweries, Cideries, and Distilleries

    flight of four different beers

    Vermont’s Best Breweries, Cideries, and Distilleries Worth a Visit

    By eight in the morning outside The Alchemist in Stowe, there’s already a line of cars pulled off to the shoulder of Route 100, engines idling while people wait for the doors to open at eleven. Nobody in that line seems bothered by the wait. That’s the thing about Vermont in the summer, patience for good beer, cider, and spirits is practically a local pastime, and once you understand why, the whole state starts to look like one long, slow tasting trail.

    Vermont has more craft breweries per capita than almost anywhere else in the country, and once you add in the cideries built around century-old orchards and the small distilleries tucked into old farm buildings, you end up with a scene that’s less about any single destination and more about the drive itself. Some of the best afternoons I’ve had this way weren’t planned much beyond “head north on 100 and see what’s open.”

    What are the best breweries to visit in Vermont?

    The Alchemist in Stowe is the one people plan whole trips around, mostly because of Heady Topper, the double IPA that put Vermont beer on the national map. The brewery itself sits just outside town on Route 100, with a tasting room and a view of the mountains that makes the wait worth it. Cans only, no growlers, and they sell out most days, so if you want a specific batch, get there early.

    Burlington has its own cluster worth a full afternoon. Foam Brewers sits right on the waterfront with a patio that looks out over Lake Champlain, which means you can watch the sun drop behind the Adirondacks while you work through a flight of their rotating, fruit-forward beers. A few blocks away in the South End, Zero Gravity Brewery keeps things a little more classic with its Green State Lager and Conehead IPA, and the taproom has the kind of unpretentious, neighborhood feel that makes it easy to linger.

    If you’re heading toward the Northeast Kingdom instead, Rock Art Brewery in Morrisville is worth the detour. It’s a smaller operation than the Burlington spots, but the lineup is bold and the staff will happily talk you through what’s in season. There’s something satisfying about drinking a beer brewed a few miles from where you’re standing, in a state where that’s more the rule than the exception.

    Planning a brewery stop without wasting your afternoon

    Most Vermont breweries keep limited hours, especially the smaller ones, so check before you drive. Weekday afternoons tend to be quieter than weekend ones, and if a place has both a taproom and a retail counter, the retail line usually moves faster if you already know what you want.

    Where can you find good cideries in Vermont?

    Cider gets overshadowed by beer in a lot of Vermont writeups, which is a mistake, because some of the state’s oldest agricultural history is bottled up in it. Citizen Cider, based in Burlington’s South End, was one of the first to bring Vermont hard cider into the modern craft scene, and their Cider Pub pours a rotating list that includes co-ferments with strawberries and blueberries alongside their flagship semi-dry Unified Press.

    Cold Hollow Cider Mill in Waterbury is more of a working mill than a taproom, and that’s exactly the appeal. The tasting room is warm and unfussy, and it’s still famous for its fresh cider doughnuts, which means you can pair a glass of hard cider with something straight out of the fryer without walking more than twenty feet.

    Further south, Champlain Orchards in Shoreham is one of the oldest continuously operating orchards in the state, family owned and ecologically managed, and every drop of their hard cider comes from apples grown right there. It’s a longer drive from Burlington, but it’s the kind of place where you understand, standing in the orchard rows, exactly where your glass came from. Stowe Cider, meanwhile, gives you a reason to stick around Stowe a little longer after your brewery stop, with a family-friendly tasting room that’s grown alongside its production.

    Vermont’s cider identity runs deeper than most visitors expect. This is orchard country long before it was brewery country, and a cidery has a way of slowing a trip down in a good way, since most of them want you to walk the orchard, not just belly up to a bar.

    A lot of these cideries sit close enough to farm stands and general stores that you can turn the stop into a small picnic without much planning. Grab a wedge of Vermont cheddar and a loaf from whatever bakery you passed on the way in, and you’ve got a better lunch than most restaurants would put in front of you.

    Which Vermont distilleries offer tastings and tours?

    Smugglers’ Notch Distillery in Jeffersonville is a father and son operation that’s easy to fold into a Stowe area trip, since it sits just over the mountain from the brewery crowds. The tastings are relaxed, and the story behind the name, tied to the old smuggling routes through the notch, gives the visit a little extra texture.

    Mad River Distillers in Warren runs its tours by appointment, usually forty five minutes to an hour, and includes a guided tasting for around fifteen dollars a person. It’s a good option if you want more than a quick pour, since someone actually walks you through the still and explains what you’re drinking rather than just handing you a menu.

    Caledonia Spirits in Montpelier deserves a special mention for its gin, made with local honey in a way that tastes distinctly like the Vermont countryside rather than a generic juniper pour. Their tasting room downtown is an easy stop if you’re already in the capital for the day, and it pairs well with a walk through Montpelier’s small, walkable downtown afterward.

    A few honest notes before you go

    Several of the smaller distilleries operate by appointment only, so a phone call ahead saves you a wasted trip. And if you’re hitting more than one stop in a day, plan a designated driver or space things out, since Vermont’s back roads are winding and often unlit after dark.

    What’s the best time of year to visit Vermont’s breweries, cideries, and distilleries?

    Summer gives you the patios, the waterfront views in Burlington, and long evenings that make a multi-stop day trip actually feasible. Fall brings foliage crowds and cider season proper, when the orchards are heavy with fruit and pressing is happening in real time, though you’ll want to book ahead since it’s the busiest stretch of the year.

    Winter has its own appeal too. Tasting rooms turn cozy rather than crowded, and there’s something about pairing a pour of Vermont whiskey with a view of actual snow on the Green Mountains that feels more honest than any summer patio. Spring is the quietest season across the board, which some locals actually prefer, since you can walk into most tasting rooms without a wait.

    • Summer: patios, waterfront taprooms, long daylight for multi-stop trips
    • Fall: cider pressing season, peak foliage, book ahead
    • Winter: cozy tasting rooms, fewer crowds, pairs well with a ski trip
    • Spring: quiet, unhurried, easiest season for walk-ins

    How do you plan a day trip that hits multiple stops?

    The Stowe area alone can fill a full day, since The Alchemist, Stowe Cider, and Smugglers’ Notch Distillery are all within a short drive of each other along Route 100. Burlington works the same way, with Foam Brewers, Zero Gravity, and Citizen Cider close enough to walk between if you’re willing to leave the car parked for the afternoon.

    If you’ve got more than a day, stringing together a route from Burlington down through Shoreham to Champlain Orchards, then back up through the Mad River Valley to Warren and Montpelier, gives you a genuine cross section of the state’s craft beverage scene without repeating a single road twice. Most locals I know don’t plan it any more precisely than that. You pick a direction, you leave room for a wrong turn or a recommendation from whoever’s pouring your glass, and you let the day fill in around whatever’s actually open.

    There’s a version of Vermont that only shows up once you’ve had a conversation with the person behind the counter at a place with four employees and one still, and that version is worth more than any list of names.

    It also helps to leave a little slack in the schedule. The best recommendations I’ve gotten on these trips came from a bartender in Morrisville who sent me an hour north to a distillery I hadn’t heard of, and from a cidery employee in Shoreham who told me which back road actually had cell service if I needed to call ahead to my next stop. None of that shows up on a map before you go.

    Shop Green Mountain Peaks on Etsy

    Bring a little piece of Vermont into your home with our curated collection of gifts, apparel, and seasonal favorites. From cozy hoodies and crewnecks to Vermont-themed gift boxes and cookbooks, each item is designed to celebrate the Green Mountain spirit.

    • Vermont-inspired designs and gift sets
    • Printed and packaged with care
    • Ships directly to your door
    Visit Our Etsy Shop

    Discover gifts, apparel, and Vermont treasures made to share and enjoy year-round.

  • Exploring Johnson, Vermont: A Perfect Day Trip

    Exploring Johnson, Vermont: A Perfect Day Trip

    johnson, vermont in autumn

    The Gihon River is running low and clear past the Power House Covered Bridge, the kind of morning light where the water looks like it’s holding its breath. A couple of kids are already down at the swimming hole checking the temperature with their toes, even though it’s barely nine o’clock. This is Johnson on a good day, unhurried, a little bit stubborn about staying that way, and one of the best places in the Lamoille Valley to spend a slow afternoon without a single reservation to keep.

    Johnson doesn’t announce itself the way Stowe or Woodstock does. There’s no welcome banner, no cluster of tour buses. It’s a working mill village that happens to also be an arts town, a farm town, and a trailhead, all layered on top of each other along a short stretch of Route 15. If you’re planning a day trip to Johnson, Vermont, the trick is not to rush it. This is a town built for wandering, not checking boxes.

    What makes Johnson, Vermont worth a day trip?

    Part of it is the history you can still touch. Johnson Woolen Mills has been making wool outerwear in this same village since 1842, and the factory store on Lower Main East still smells like raw wool and cedar when you walk in. Part of it is the water, the Gihon River cutting through downtown and feeding into the Lamoille just east of the village green. And part of it is the people who’ve chosen to stay, or come from somewhere else entirely and never left, drawn in by the Vermont Studio Center’s residency program and the quiet that lets you actually finish a thought.

    You feel all of that within about ten minutes of parking on Main Street. It’s a small footprint. That’s the point.

    Where should you start a morning in Johnson?

    Start at the river. The Power House Covered Bridge, sometimes called the School Street Bridge, has crossed the Gihon since the 1870s, though the current structure was rebuilt in 2002 after a heavy snow load collapsed the original roof. It kept the same queenpost truss design, and standing inside it, listening to the water underneath, is as good a way as any to slow your pulse down before the day gets going.

    From there, walk into the village proper. Coffee first, always. The Dream Café has been the town’s unofficial living room for years, the kind of place where the person behind the counter remembers what you ordered last time even if you don’t remember them. Take it slow. Sit by the window if you can get it. Watch Main Street wake up.

    A stop at Johnson Woolen Mills

    You don’t need a reason to go in, but a Vermont winter will give you one eventually. The factory store on Lower Main East sells the same wool jackets, pants, and flannel shirts the mill has been producing for over 180 years, and the seconds and remnants bin is worth ten minutes of digging on its own. Everything here is made a few hundred feet from where you’re standing, which is rarer than it should be.

    Is there art and culture to see in a town this small?

    More than you’d expect. Johnson has quietly built a reputation as one of Vermont’s real art towns, mostly because of the Vermont Studio Center, an international artist and writer residency that’s been operating out of the old mill buildings on Pearl Street for decades. The Red Mill Gallery on campus hosts rotating exhibitions tied to each residency session, and the shows are open to the public, free, and genuinely worth the detour even if you don’t know a thing about contemporary printmaking.

    The energy spills out into town too. You’ll notice it in the murals, the little gallery windows, the way conversations at the café tend to drift toward whoever’s in residence that month, painters from Seoul, poets from Brooklyn, all passing through this one particular bend in the river.

    Lunch, the unglamorous way

    Don’t overthink lunch in Johnson. Grab something simple from Sterling Market and eat it outside, ideally down by the river or on the green if the weather’s cooperating. Vermont towns this size don’t need a tasting menu to be memorable. Sometimes a sandwich in the sun on a Tuesday in July is the whole point.

    What’s the best way to spend the afternoon outdoors?

    This is where Johnson quietly outperforms towns three times its size. The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, New England’s longest rail trail, runs right through the village on its way from Swanton to St. Johnsbury, and the stretch through Johnson is flat, shaded, and easy enough for a family with kids on borrowed bikes. Rent one if you don’t have your own, or just walk a mile or two out and back. In fall, this section fills in gold and rust before most of the higher elevations even start to turn, since the valley floor here holds its color a little longer than the ridgelines above it.

    If the day’s warm, Journey’s End Swimming Hole is the local secret worth knowing. It sits at the end of a forested half mile trail, and the water stays cold enough in July to feel like a genuine reward after the walk in. Bring water shoes. The rocks along the edge are slick.

    • Walk or bike a stretch of the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail
    • Cool off at Journey’s End Swimming Hole or along the Gihon
    • Browse the Red Mill Gallery if a residency session is in exhibition
    • Pick up wool goods at the Johnson Woolen Mills factory store

    For the road trip crowd

    Johnson sits close enough to Route 100C and the Green Mountain Byway that it makes an easy add-on to a bigger loop, whether you’re coming from Stowe, Smugglers’ Notch, or up from Montpelier. It’s the kind of stop that turns a straightforward drive into an actual day, especially if you’re chasing foliage and want somewhere with fewer cars parked along the shoulder.

    When is the best time of year to visit Johnson, Vermont?

    Every season here has its own case to make. Summer is for the rail trail and the swimming holes, long light until well past eight and porches full of people who aren’t in any hurry to go inside. Fall belongs to the color along the Gihon and the valley floor, and because Johnson sits lower than the ski towns to the east, the foliage here tends to peak a little later than what you’ll see up around Stowe or Jay, which makes it a good second stop on a leaf peeping weekend.

    Winter turns Johnson quiet in a different way. The Woolen Mills factory store does its best business of the year, snow settles thick on the covered bridge roof, and the rail trail becomes a groomed corridor for cross country skiers and snowshoers instead of cyclists. Spring is the town at its most private, mud season keeping the crowds away entirely, which honestly might be the best time to have the Red Mill Gallery almost to yourself.

    A note on pace

    It’s worth saying plainly that Johnson rewards people who aren’t trying to see everything. You could technically hit every stop on this list, the bridge, the mills, the gallery, the trail, the swimming hole, in a single unhurried day. But the town works better if you let one or two things stretch longer than planned. Linger at the café. Sit on the bridge longer than you meant to. That’s closer to how the people who live here actually spend their Saturdays.

    What should you know before visiting Johnson, Vermont?

    Come with a slower agenda than you think you need. Shops here keep small town hours, and a few close early or take a weekday off entirely, so it’s worth calling ahead if there’s one specific stop you can’t miss. Cell service can be spotty once you’re on the rail trail or down near the swimming holes, so download directions before you lose the signal.

    Northern Vermont’s elevation and river valley setting mean the seasons shift a little differently here than they do farther south. Spring mud season lingers longer, first frost tends to arrive earlier, and the swimming holes don’t really warm up until well into summer. Locals plan around it. Visitors should too.

    Parking is easy and mostly free along Main Street, and the whole village is small enough to see on foot once you’ve found a spot. That’s really the whole appeal of a place like this. Nothing is far, and nothing is in a hurry to impress you.

    By late afternoon, the light changes over the river again, longer shadows off the covered bridge, the rail trail mostly empty, somebody’s dog swimming laps in the shallow water near the bank. Johnson doesn’t ask you to remember it. It just quietly makes sure you do anyway.

    Shop Green Mountain Peaks on Etsy

    Bring a little piece of Vermont into your home with our curated collection of gifts, apparel, and seasonal favorites. From cozy hoodies and crewnecks to Vermont-themed gift boxes and cookbooks, each item is designed to celebrate the Green Mountain spirit.

    • Vermont-inspired designs and gift sets
    • Printed and packaged with care
    • Ships directly to your door
    Visit Our Etsy Shop

    Discover gifts, apparel, and Vermont treasures made to share and enjoy year-round.

  • Exploring Vermont’s Scenic Rail Trails for Family Rides

    Exploring Vermont’s Scenic Rail Trails for Family Rides

    There’s a stretch of crushed stone just past the old depot in Morrisville where the trail dips through a stand of birches and the Lamoille River runs close enough on your right that you can hear it over your own tires. Nobody’s honking. Nobody’s passing you on a blind curve. That’s the thing about a rail trail. Trains never needed steep grades or tight turns, so the paths they left behind are gentle, wide, and made for exactly the kind of afternoon where you don’t want to think too hard about where your feet are landing.

    Vermont has quietly become one of the best places in the country to ride a bike path built on an old rail bed, and if you’re looking for vermont bike paths that fit a lazy Saturday better than a technical singletrack ever could, this is where to start.

    What Exactly Is a Rail Trail?

    When a railroad stops running, the corridor it built doesn’t have to disappear. Vermont has converted dozens of these old lines into multi-use paths, graded flat, usually ten feet wide, and surfaced in packed crushed stone rather than pavement. The result is a trail with almost no elevation surprises, wide enough for a family to ride four across if they wanted to, and shaded by whatever grew up along the tracks over the last hundred years.

    That gentle grade is the whole appeal. You can put a six year old on a bike, or a grandparent who hasn’t ridden in a decade, and everyone ends up at the same ice cream stand at the same time, tired in the good way instead of the defeated way.

    Where Is the Longest Rail Trail in Vermont?

    The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail is the one locals brag about, and fairly so. It runs 95 miles from St. Johnsbury to Swanton, threading through eighteen towns and five counties, which makes it the longest rail trail in New England. You don’t need to ride the whole thing in one day, and almost nobody does.

    A good introduction is the section through Hardwick and Wolcott, where the trail hugs the river and passes old creamery buildings that have been repurposed into studios and small shops. Further west, the Morristown to Cambridge stretch rolls past dairy farms that still put cows out in the same fields the trains used to rattle by.

    A Trail That Rewards Patience

    Because the LVRT is a four season corridor, it’s not just a summer bike path. Snowmobilers use sections of it in winter, and in shoulder season you’ll find it dotted with people walking dogs or pushing strollers at a pace that would be impossible on a road shoulder. There’s no rush built into the design of the thing, and that seems to rub off on the people using it.

    Can You Bike Across Lake Champlain in Vermont?

    You actually can, sort of. The Island Line Trail runs 14.4 miles from Oakledge Park in Burlington north through Colchester, and the last three miles ride out onto a causeway built from railbed stone straight into Lake Champlain, with the Adirondacks off to your left and the Green Mountains behind you.

    At the end of the causeway there’s a 200 foot gap where the old rail bridge used to cross, and instead of rebuilding it, Local Motion runs a small bike ferry across the gap in season. It’s an odd little pause in the middle of a ride, boarding a pontoon boat with your bike still strapped to your side, but it’s become one of those Vermont experiences people plan whole weekends around. The ferry runs weekends in spring and fall and daily through summer, and landing on the far side in South Hero feels like arriving somewhere genuinely separate from the mainland, even though you only just crossed a few hundred feet of water.

    What Rail Trails Are Good for a Quiet Afternoon in Southern Vermont?

    The Delaware and Hudson Rail Trail doesn’t get the same attention as the LVRT, and that’s part of its charm. It runs about 20 miles through Rutland and Bennington counties, split into two sections, one between Castleton and Poultney, another further south near West Pawlet and Rupert, with a bit of on road connecting through New York in between.

    Locals used to call the trains that ran this line the Slate Picker, a name that still shows up on old signage and in conversation at the general store in Poultney. Riding it now, you pass the same farms, the same slate outcroppings, and the same quiet villages the trains once served, minus the noise and the schedule. It’s a good pick when you want a shorter ride, an hour or two, without driving all the way up to the Kingdom.

    The trail’s two Vermont sections aren’t connected directly, there’s a stretch of on and off road riding through New York in between, so most people treat the Castleton to Poultney piece and the West Pawlet to Rupert piece as two separate rides rather than one continuous trip. Both hold onto that slate country landscape that makes this corner of the state feel distinct from the dairy valleys further north, low stone walls, quarry ponds, and the occasional pile of discarded slate shingles rusted the color of the hills around them.

    If you’re staying in the area, pairing a morning on the D&H with an afternoon poking around Poultney’s village green makes for an easy, unhurried day that doesn’t require much planning beyond checking that your tires are aired up.

    Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail up near the Canadian border deserves a mention too, even though it’s smaller. It runs along the Missisquoi River through Sheldon, Enosburg Falls, and Richford, past covered bridges and old creamery sites, and it connects into the LVRT network near Sheldon Junction. It’s the kind of trail you find almost by accident, driving through on Route 105, and then can’t stop thinking about.

    Each of these corridors gets maintained a little differently, some by state agencies, some by regional trail alliances and volunteer groups, which means surface quality and signage can vary from one section to the next. It rarely matters much once you’re riding, but it’s worth knowing if you’re the type who likes a trail map printed out before you leave the house.

    What Should You Bring on a Vermont Rail Trail Ride?

    Crushed stone surfaces are forgiving but they’re not pavement, so a hybrid or gravel bike handles better than a road bike with skinny tires. Beyond that, the list is short and mostly about not overthinking it:

    • A tire pump or patch kit, since crushed stone occasionally hides a sharp piece of old ballast
    • Water and snacks, especially on the longer LVRT sections where towns can be miles apart
    • Cash for the bike ferry if you’re riding the Island Line Trail
    • Layers, since river valleys and lakeside causeways run cooler than the trailhead parking lot suggests

    Most of these trails also welcome walkers, runners, and in winter, snowshoers and skiers, so don’t feel locked into two wheels if that’s not your thing.

    When Is the Best Time of Year to Ride a Vermont Rail Trail?

    Late spring through early fall covers most of it, but the character of these trails changes a lot depending on the month. May and June bring high water in the rivers running alongside the LVRT, and the birdsong along the Hardwick to Wolcott stretch is at its loudest right after the leaves fill in.

    Summer is the easiest window logistically, with the bike ferry running daily on the Island Line Trail and every general store along the way open for business. It’s also the busiest, so if you’re after solitude, weekday mornings are the move.

    Fall is when these trails earn their reputation. Because rail corridors were graded to avoid steep climbs, they tend to run through low valleys and along waterways, which happens to be exactly where Vermont’s foliage color shows up first and lingers longest. Riding the LVRT through Cabot or Walden in early October, with the corn cut and the hills turning behind the barns, is a different experience than the same stretch in July. Northern sections at higher elevation change color first, sometimes by mid to late September, while the trail through the Champlain Valley holds its color into the second or third week of October most years.

    Winter doesn’t shut these corridors down, it just changes who’s using them. Snowmobile clubs groom sections of the LVRT, and you’ll see cross country skiers and snowshoers on the flatter stretches near town. It’s a quieter kind of use, but the trails were built for four seasons and Vermonters tend to take that literally.

    Why These Trails Feel Different From a Regular Bike Path

    There’s something about riding a corridor that used to carry freight and passengers that makes the landscape read differently. You notice the old depot buildings, now sometimes a library or a café. You notice why a town grew up exactly where it did, because the tracks needed a flat spot and the town followed. The history isn’t explained on a plaque every mile, it’s just present in the grade of the trail and the shape of the buildings you pass.

    That’s really the draw. A vermont bike path built on an old rail bed isn’t trying to be a workout or a destination in itself. It’s just a good, flat, quiet way to spend a few hours seeing a part of the state most people only drive past at fifty miles an hour.

    Somewhere around mile twelve on any of these trails, the sound of your own tires on crushed stone becomes the only sound there is, and that’s usually when you stop checking the time.

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  • Exploring Vermont’s Farm to Table Scene

    Exploring Vermont’s Farm to Table Scene

    There is a farm stand on Route 100 that I have been stopping at since before I can remember, the kind with a coffee can for change and a chalkboard that just says “corn, tomatoes, whatever Gram picked today.” Every July, the line of cars pulls off onto the gravel shoulder like clockwork. That little stand, more than any restaurant menu, is what farm to table actually means around here. It is not a trend. It is just how people eat when the season allows it, and it is one of the quiet reasons so many people end up moving to Vermont in the first place.

    Summer is when this whole way of eating shows off. The farms are full, the porches are open, and the restaurants across Lamoille County and the surrounding hills lean hard into whatever came out of the ground that morning. If you are visiting, this is the season to plan your meals around. If you already live here, you probably have your regular spots. And if you are thinking about relocating to Vermont, the food scene tells you almost everything you need to know about the pace of life you would be signing up for.

    Where can you actually find farm to table restaurants in Vermont?

    The honest answer is almost everywhere, but some corners of the state built their whole identity around it. Waterbury and Stowe, just down the road from each other, have quietly become one of the most talked about small food regions in New England. You do not need a reservation months out or a special occasion. You just need to be hungry and willing to wait a little on a summer Saturday.

    Hen of the Wood in Waterbury is usually the first name that comes up, and for good reason. The restaurant sits inside an old grist mill building, all exposed brick and low light, and the kitchen leans into foraging as much as farming. Wild mushrooms, local trout, whatever the surrounding hills are offering that week. It is the kind of place that made people outside Vermont start paying attention to what our chefs were doing with what we already had.

    A quieter option in Stowe village

    Cork, tucked into downtown Stowe, is a smaller, more intimate version of the same philosophy. It is chef driven, the wine list leans natural, and the menu shifts with the seasons rather than sitting still all year. It feels like the kind of restaurant a local would take you to on a Tuesday night, not just a special occasion spot.

    For something more casual, Doc Ponds in Stowe comes from the same team behind Hen of the Wood, but the mood is completely different. Think good beer, a record player going, and pub food built around the same local sourcing, just dressed down. It is a good spot after a long hike or a lazy beach day at the Ten Bends.

    What makes farm to table dining different in Vermont than other places?

    In a lot of cities, farm to table is a marketing phrase. Here, it is closer to a logistics problem. The farm really might be down the road. The cheese on your plate might have been made by someone the chef went to high school with. That closeness changes the way menus get written. Instead of a fixed menu that never moves, you get chalkboard specials that change because a farmer showed up with a case of strawberries nobody was expecting.

    It also changes the pricing conversation a little. Sourcing from small local farms instead of large distributors usually costs more, and you will notice it on the check. What you are paying for is freshness and a direct line back to the land, not a supply chain that crossed several state lines to get to your plate.

    Ask where it comes from

    If you want to know whether a place is really farm to table or just borrowing the phrase, ask your server where the produce or meat comes from. In my experience, the real ones light up when you ask. They will tell you the farm name, sometimes the farmer’s first name, sometimes what the weather did to that crop this year. If the answer is vague, that tells you something too.

    Do people really move to Vermont because of the food?

    It comes up more than you would think. People considering relocating to Vermont often talk about the mountains first, or the quiet, or wanting their kids to grow up somewhere slower. But food is almost always somewhere on that list too, even if it is not the headline reason. Living in Vermont means your grocery run in July includes a stop at a farm stand, and your favorite restaurant probably has a chalkboard instead of a laminated menu. That rhythm, tied to the seasons instead of a corporate supply calendar, is part of the Vermont lifestyle people are chasing when they start looking at listings up here.

    Where do locals actually eat in the summer?

    Tourists tend to gravitate toward the well known names in Stowe, and they should, those places earned their reputation. But locals scatter out a little more. A lot of summer eating around here happens standing up at a farmers market, not sitting down at a table.

    The Stowe Farmers Market and the smaller markets that pop up around Morrisville and Johnson through the summer are where a lot of actual weekday meals get built. You show up for eggs and end up leaving with a loaf of sourdough, a jar of someone’s hot honey, and dinner plans that did not exist twenty minutes earlier.

    • Fresh corn and tomatoes by midsummer, straight off the truck
    • Maple products that never stopped being relevant just because it is not syrup season
    • Local cheese, often from farms you can visit the same afternoon

    What should you order at a Vermont farm to table restaurant this summer?

    My rule is simple. Whatever the special says, order that. The regular menu items are good, but the specials are where a kitchen shows you exactly what came in that morning. If a place lists a specific farm name next to a dish, that is usually the one worth ordering.

    Vermont cheddar shows up on almost everything from burgers to mac and cheese, and there is a reason for that beyond nostalgia. It is genuinely good, and it is genuinely local. Same goes for anything involving Vermont raised beef or pork. If a menu mentions grass fed or pasture raised, it is not just a buzzword up here, it usually means the animal grew up an hour from your table.

    A note on small towns off the beaten path

    Do not overlook the smaller towns while you are exploring. Places like Cambridge and Hyde Park do not always have the destination restaurant with a national write up, but they have the kind of small, unpretentious spots where the cook knows your order by the second visit. That is its own kind of Vermont small town charm, and honestly it might be the more accurate picture of what living in Vermont actually feels like day to day.

    Every summer I try to hit at least one new farm stand I have never stopped at before, just to see what it has. Most years, it turns into a new favorite.

  • Discover Authentic Vermont: Covered Bridge Road Trips

    Discover Authentic Vermont: Covered Bridge Road Trips

    It was somewhere between the second and third bridge of the day when I stopped thinking about the route entirely. The map was still open on the passenger seat. I just was not looking at it anymore. The road had gone from pavement to packed dirt about a mile back, the tree canopy had closed in overhead, and somewhere ahead there was a covered bridge that had been standing in the same spot since before anyone currently alive was born. That has a way of resetting your priorities.

    Covered bridge road trips have a reputation for being quaint, and sure, they are that. But they are also one of the most genuinely revealing ways to understand what Vermont is actually like as a place. Not the postcard version. The real version, with its dirt roads and working farms and small towns that have their own strong opinions about who they are and intend to stay that way. If you have ever been curious about living in Vermont, or even just curious about what Vermont life feels like underneath the foliage photos, a day on these backroads will tell you more than most guides ever do.

    Why do people keep coming back to Vermont’s covered bridges?

    There are over a hundred covered bridges still standing in Vermont, more per square mile than anywhere else in the country. That fact gets cited a lot, but the more interesting question is why so many survived when bridges elsewhere were replaced and forgotten.

    The answer is essentially that Vermont communities decided they were worth keeping. Towns organized, raised money, pushed back against demolition proposals, and maintained structures that would have been easier to tear down. That is not a small thing. It says something about how people here relate to the places they live, and that relationship shows up everywhere once you start noticing it.

    The bridges did not survive because they are pretty. They survived because people cared. And that particular quality, caring about place in a stubborn and practical way, is one of the most consistent things about Vermont culture across the whole state.

    What Vermont towns are worth stopping in on a covered bridge road trip?

    The bridges are the excuse to pull over. The towns are the actual experience. These are a few worth building your route around.

    Montgomery: Six bridges and a town that means it

    Franklin County’s Montgomery has six historic covered bridges within a short drive of each other, which makes it an obvious anchor for any northern Vermont road trip. But the bridges are almost secondary to what the town itself feels like. Montgomery is genuinely small, genuinely rural, and not performing anything for visitors. It is just itself, which happens to include a handful of remarkable wooden structures and some beautiful hill country surrounding them.

    The drive between bridges here takes you along back roads where the fields open up and the Green Mountains sit in the distance in a way that feels almost improbably scenic for a regular Tuesday afternoon. Pack something to eat because you will want to stop more than once.

    Northfield: History that shows up in the details

    Northfield in Washington County has a different feel from the Franklin County towns. It is a little more connected, a little more layered historically, and home to Norwich University, the oldest private military college in the country. The covered bridges near the village center, including the Cox Brook Covered Bridge, sit close enough to town that you can walk from the bridge to a coffee shop or the green without any effort.

    What Northfield does well is that combination of deep local history and active everyday community life. The bridges here are not isolated landmarks. They are just part of how the town is stitched together, which is exactly what makes them worth visiting.

    Warren and the Mad River Valley: Small scale, big personality

    The Warren Covered Bridge sits right at the edge of Warren Village, spanning the Mad River where the water runs loud and fast over rocks. Downstream there is a waterfall. The village itself is tiny but genuinely alive, with a well-loved general store that has been a community anchor for decades and enough local character packed into a few hundred square feet that you will want to stay longer than you planned.

    The Mad River Valley as a whole is one of those areas that people discover on a road trip and then cannot stop thinking about. The outdoor access is serious, the community feel is real, and the landscape on a clear morning when the mist is still sitting in the valley is the kind of thing that is hard to describe without sounding like you are exaggerating.

    Stowe area: Beautiful and worth understanding clearly

    Stowe comes up in almost every Vermont conversation, which means it is worth including here and also worth being honest about. Emily’s Bridge on Gold Brook Road (well covered in our Vermont covered bridges location guide) gives you a quieter moment outside the main village, and the landscape looking out toward Mount Mansfield from the surrounding roads is genuinely extraordinary.

    Stowe is a real place with real community underneath its well-known surface. But it is also one end of a wide Vermont spectrum. A good road trip gives you a chance to feel the difference between Stowe and Montgomery, between Warren and Northfield, and to start understanding how much variety exists within a state that is easy to flatten into a single image from the outside.

    What does a covered bridge road trip actually feel like day to day in Vermont?

    This is the part that is hard to explain to someone who has not spent time here yet. Vermont does not reveal itself through highlights. It reveals itself through accumulation. A hand-painted sign on a farm stand. A general store where someone behind the counter knows everyone who walks in. A church on a town green that has been the same church since 1812. A river sound you can hear from the road.

    The covered bridge road trip works as a format because it gives you a reason to drive slowly through places that reward slow driving. You are not on an interstate. You are on a road that was designed for a horse, widened for a Model T, and has not changed much since. The pace that requires is exactly the pace Vermont makes sense at.

    Vermont lifestyle gets talked about in broad terms a lot: outdoor recreation, farm-to-table food, four seasons, strong community. All of that is true. But the texture of it, the specific feeling of living inside this landscape, is harder to put into words and easier to just feel on a Tuesday afternoon with the windows down and nowhere particular to be by any particular time.

    What should you know before planning a covered bridge road trip in Vermont?

    A few things that are useful to know before you go, especially if you are coming from somewhere more urban or more planned.

    • Dirt roads are real roads here. A lot of the best bridges are accessed by unpaved roads that can get rough after rain. A regular car handles them fine in dry conditions. Just know they exist and do not treat them as a warning to turn around.
    • Cell service is inconsistent in the hill towns. Download your route before you leave rather than counting on navigation working reliably the whole time.
    • Plan more time than you think you need. Not because the drives are long, but because you will keep stopping for things you did not plan to stop for.
    • Weekdays are significantly quieter than weekends, especially in fall. If you can go on a Tuesday or Wednesday, the experience is genuinely different from a Saturday in October.
    • The best stops are often the ones between bridges. A general store in a town you have never heard of can be the most memorable part of the day.

    There is no wrong way to do this. The state is small enough that most of the bridges are within a few hours of each other, and Vermont rewards the kind of loose itinerary that leaves room for detours.

    How does a road trip like this connect to what Vermont is really like year-round?

    One thing a covered bridge road trip does that a typical vacation does not is put you in contact with Vermont that is not trying to entertain you. The farms are working farms. The towns are towns where people live full-time, year-round, through mud season and February and all of it. The bridges are maintained because the communities around them decided to maintain them, not because the tourism board requested it.

    That quality of genuine-ness is one of the things people mean when they talk about why they love living in Vermont or why they were drawn to moving here from somewhere else. It is not a performance. It is a place that has a strong point of view about what it is and has been pretty consistent about that for a long time.

    You can read about Vermont lifestyle in a lot of places. But there is a specific kind of understanding that only comes from a day on the backroads, the kind where you end up at a covered bridge you did not know existed, in a town you had never heard of, watching a river move under old wood, and realizing you have not thought about anything else for the last two hours.

    That is a Vermont thing. And it does not get old.

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  • Experience Vermont: A Guide to Solo Hiking

    Experience Vermont: A Guide to Solo Hiking

    Mt Belvidere vermont

    There’s a particular moment that happens somewhere around the third mile of a solo hike in Vermont. The parking lot noise fades. The last dog walker turns back. And you realize it’s just you, the ridge, and however many miles of birch and spruce you decided to take on that morning. It’s quiet in a way that feels earned.

    I’ve had that moment on the Long Trail above Stowe, on a frozen logging road outside Johnson, and at the summit of Elmore Mountain when the cloud cover broke just long enough to show the full Lamoille Valley below me. Solo hiking in Vermont teaches you things that group hikes just don’t. You pay closer attention. You make better decisions. And you start to understand why so many people, when they’re thinking seriously about living in Vermont, mention the trails as one of the reasons.

    This isn’t a gear list or a beginner’s guide. It’s more like a collection of things I wish someone had told me before I started hiking alone in the Green Mountains.

    Is Solo Hiking in Vermont Safe for Beginners?

    This is the question people ask most, and it’s a fair one. Vermont’s terrain ranges from friendly to genuinely demanding. The southern part of the Long Trail through Windham and Bennington counties is more forgiving. The northern sections, especially anything above 3,000 feet in the Green Mountain spine, require more experience and more respect for the weather.

    That said, Vermont is one of the better states for solo beginners if you start smart. The trail system is well maintained. The Green Mountain Club marks routes clearly. Cell service is unreliable once you’re deep in the mountains, but many popular trailheads have kiosks with current conditions. Starting with shorter, well-traveled trails like the ones around Elmore State Park, Sterling Pond, or the lower sections of Nebraska Notch is a reasonable approach before committing to longer ridges.

    What catches people off guard is not the difficulty of the climbs. It’s the weather. Vermont weather changes fast, especially at elevation. A June morning that starts at 65 degrees in Morrisville can be 42 and windy at the top of Whiteface by noon. Layers matter more than almost anything else.

    What to Carry When You’re Hiking Alone

    When you’re with a group, you can distribute the safety net across multiple people. Solo, you carry it yourself. The basics I never skip:

    • A paper map of the trail system (downloaded offline maps are good backup, not the primary)
    • A headlamp, even on day hikes
    • At least one extra layer you haven’t planned to use
    • A small first aid kit and the knowledge to actually use it
    • Enough food and water to spend an unexpected extra two hours out there

    I also keep a printed trail card in my car with my planned route, expected return time, and a contact number. Old habit, but it’s the kind of thing that matters when no one knows where you went.

    What Are the Best Solo Hiking Trails in Northern Vermont?

    Northern Vermont doesn’t get the same attention as the southern peaks, but the hiking up here is genuinely excellent. Lamoille County alone has more good trails than most people realize, and because the tourist flow leans toward Stowe’s ski runs and Burlington’s waterfront, you get trailheads to yourself more often than not.

    A few that I keep coming back to:

    Elmore Mountain Trail, Lake Elmore

    This is a solid half-day hike with a real payoff. The trail climbs through hardwood forest, passes a fire warden’s cabin, and ends at a restored fire tower with a 360-degree view of the Green Mountains and the Northeast Kingdom. The fire tower adds something different. Standing up in that cab on a clear day, you can pick out Camel’s Hump to the south, Jay Peak to the north, and on the best days, Mount Mansfield sitting right in the middle of it all.

    The trailhead is inside Elmore State Park, which charges a small fee in season. Worth it.

    Nebraska Notch Trail, Cambridge

    This is one of my favorites for early fall. The trail follows a brook through a narrow, rocky notch before opening up near Taylor Lodge. It’s not a summit trail, so don’t go expecting views. What you get instead is a stretch of Vermont forest that feels genuinely wild, even though it’s only a few miles from Route 108. The sound of water running through the notch in September, with the first color starting to show in the maples, is one of those Vermont things you can’t really describe to someone who hasn’t been here.

    Sterling Pond Trail, Stowe

    This one climbs steeply off the Toll Road access area and tops out at one of the highest ponds in Vermont. The trail is short but it earns the elevation quickly. The pond itself sits in a bowl just below the ridgeline, and on a clear morning the reflection in the water is the kind of thing that makes you stop walking and just stand there for a minute.

    How Does Solo Hiking Change the Way You Experience Vermont?

    This is harder to explain but worth trying. When you hike alone, you notice things you walk right past in a group. The way a stand of white birch looks in late October when there’s no color left but the bark is almost glowing. The sound a ruffed grouse makes when it flushes out of the undergrowth ten feet in front of you and takes fifteen years off your life. The particular smell of mud and spruce and old leaves that only exists in a Vermont forest in April.

    People who are thinking about moving to Vermont sometimes come up and visit once or twice, see the foliage or a ski weekend, and call it good. The ones who actually end up staying are usually the ones who got out on a trail by themselves at some point and had a quiet hour with what the state is actually made of. The mountains don’t perform for you. You have to show up for them.

    That kind of relationship with a place is part of what defines Vermont lifestyle for a lot of people who live here. It’s not about the scenery as backdrop. It’s about being in it.

    What Do I Need to Know About Hiking Vermont in Different Seasons?

    Vermont hikers deal with four full seasons, and each one has its own character and its own set of things to know. This is one of the things people who are relocating to Vermont don’t always expect: the outdoors here is a year-round practice, not a summer-only activity.

    Spring Hiking in Vermont

    Spring trails are soft, wet, and frequently muddy to the point of damage. The Green Mountain Club asks hikers to stay off high-elevation trails during mud season, typically from late March through mid-May depending on elevation. This isn’t just about keeping your boots clean. Hiking wet trails accelerates erosion on steep slopes and can do real, lasting damage to trail tread.

    If you want to hike in spring, stick to lower elevations and gravel-base trails. The river corridors around Johnson and Morrisville are often walkable and beautiful when the ice is just out and the water is running high.

    Summer and Early Fall

    This is peak season, and for good reason. Vermont’s summers are genuinely beautiful, with long days and moderate temperatures that make even sustained climbs comfortable. The windows of ideal hiking weather in July and August are generous.

    Early fall is the best of all of it. Mid-September through mid-October, depending on elevation and the weather pattern that year, the foliage starts moving through the mountains in waves. Hiking a ridge during peak color is something that lands differently than seeing it from a car window or a chairlift. You’re in it, not looking at it.

    Winter and Late Fall

    This is where solo hiking in Vermont requires the most care. Once the leaves are down and temperatures drop, conditions can be serious. Ice on exposed rock, limited daylight, and the added challenge of following a trail under snow all raise the stakes. Microspikes or crampons become necessary on anything with elevation by November most years. Snowshoes come out by December on the upper trails.

    That said, winter hiking in Vermont has its own particular beauty. A clear cold day on an empty trail, fresh snow on the branches, the whole valley below you completely still. There’s a reason people who love Vermont winters are so committed to them.

    Does Solo Hiking Make You Want to Stay in Vermont?

    That’s a question I’ve thought about more than once. For a lot of people, the answer turns out to be yes. Not because of any single hike or any single view, but because of what the cumulative experience adds up to over time.

    Vermont is a place where the landscape is genuinely part of daily life in a way that’s different from most states. People who end up staying here, really putting down roots, tend to find their own version of that relationship. For some it’s the ski mountain. For some it’s a garden or a farm. For a lot of people, it’s trails.

    Living in Vermont means you’re always close to something like this. That turns out to matter more than people expect it to.

    A Few Last Things Worth Knowing

    If you’re planning your first solo hike in Vermont, or you’re new to the state and figuring out where to start, a few practical notes:

    • The Green Mountain Club website has current trail conditions, especially useful in spring and after major storms
    • Vermont state parks charge a day-use fee in season (usually late May through Columbus Day), typically in the $4 to $5 range per person
    • Cell coverage is genuinely unreliable above 2,500 feet in most of the northern Greens, including on trails that are close to busy towns
    • Dogs are welcome on most trails but must be on a leash in state parks
    • The Long Trail end-to-end runs 272 miles from the Massachusetts border to the Canadian line, and sections of it are accessible for day hikes all the way through

    Vermont’s trail system is one of its best-kept open secrets. People from outside the region often think of it as a ski state, or a foliage destination, or the place with the good cheese and the maple syrup. All of that is true. But the trails are what a lot of locals quietly love most.

    The mountains have been here longer than any of us, and they’re in no hurry.

    Shop Green Mountain Peaks on Etsy

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    • Ships directly to your door
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  • Discover Vermont’s Best Ice Cream Stops This Summer

    Discover Vermont’s Best Ice Cream Stops This Summer

    One year ago today we mapped out Vermont’s ultimate ice cream road trip, and honestly, it still holds up as the perfect summer afternoon plan. From maple creemees at Morse Farm to the lakeside scoops on the Champlain Islands, this trail covers all the sweet spots worth pulling over for. Whether you’re tackling one loop or making a weekend of it, there’s a cone waiting for you somewhere on these backroads.

    Vermont Ice Cream Road Trip: The Best Stops by Region From the Northeast Kingdom to the Islands
  • Top Vermont Summer Festivals You Can’t Miss

    Top Vermont Summer Festivals You Can’t Miss

    There’s a moment every Vermont summer when the dirt road dust settles, a brass band starts up somewhere in a field, and you realize you’d happily drive an hour and a half for this. For me it was a Sunday in Glover, sitting on a grassy hillside watching papier-mâché beasts the size of pickup trucks lurch across a field while a sourdough rye loaf got passed down the row. I’d come for the spectacle. I stayed because it felt like the whole point of moving to Vermont was sitting right there in front of me.

    Summer here doesn’t announce itself with one big event. It’s spread out, town by town, weekend by weekend, often down a road your GPS isn’t fully sure about. The festivals worth the drive are rarely the ones with the biggest billboards. They’re the ones a neighbor mentions in passing, the kind you only really learn by living here a while.

    We’re past the early-June stretch now, so a few of the season’s headliners have already come and gone. The good news is that the back half of a Vermont summer is arguably the better half. Here’s what’s still ahead, the ones I tell people about when they ask what makes a Vermont summer feel like a Vermont summer.

    What summer festivals are still happening in Vermont this year?

    Plenty, and the timing actually works in your favor. The festivals clustered into late June, July, and August tend to be the slower, more rooted ones, less polished and more local. If you’re new to the state, or still in the daydreaming phase of relocating to Vermont, these are the ones that teach you the most about the place.

    You learn which towns show up big, which crowds skew local versus tourist, and how far Vermonters will genuinely travel for a good time. (Further than you’d think. Distance here is measured in scenery, not minutes.)

    Vermont Renaissance Faire in Essex Junction

    The closest one on the calendar is the Vermont Renaissance Faire, June 27 and 28 at the Champlain Valley Exposition. This is its tenth year, and from what I hear it’s shaping up to be the biggest one yet, with knights, pirates, fairies, jousting, mead makers, and food from local chefs.

    It’s silly in the best way, and kids lose their minds over it. There’s a whole encampment to wander, plenty of shade, and enough going on that nobody gets bored. If you’ve got family visiting in late June, this is an easy yes.

    West Burke Strawberry Festival

    The same weekend, way up in the Northeast Kingdom, the West Burke Strawberry Festival takes over the village park on June 26. It’s about as wholesome as a Vermont evening gets. Shortcake, barbecue, live music, dancing, and a few hundred of your soon-to-be neighbors.

    These hometown festivals are where you start recognizing faces, which is a quiet milestone when you’re new here. The drive up Route 5A alone is worth the trip.

    Are Vermont summer festivals good for families?

    Most of them, yes, and that’s not an accident. A lot of these events grew out of small-town agricultural traditions, so kids running around in the grass is the default setting, not a disruption.

    The Renaissance Faire and the Strawberry Festival both land squarely in family territory. But the one I’d build a whole afternoon around is Bread and Puppet up in Glover.

    Bread and Puppet Circus in Glover

    This is my favorite, the one that converts people. Bread and Puppet Theater runs its Circus and Pageant every Sunday from July 19 through August 31 at the farm in Glover, starting at 3 in the afternoon. Tickets are fifteen dollars, and no one gets turned away for lack of funds, which tells you most of what you need to know about the spirit of the thing.

    It’s part circus, part protest, part something older than both. Stilt dancers, a loud and joyful brass band, giant puppets that manage to be funny and unsettling at once. Afterward they serve their famous rye bread with aioli, and you can browse the Cheap Art press for posters and pamphlets. The drive up Route 122 is half the experience, all rolling farmland and the kind of quiet that makes the show land harder when it starts.

    It runs rain or shine, kids welcome, dogs tolerated if they behave. Pack water, since there’s none on site, and settle in.

    Which Vermont festivals are worth a longer road trip?

    A few are worth pointing the car a real distance for. Vermont is small, but a drive from the Kingdom down to the southern border still eats a good chunk of your day, so these are the ones I’d build a trip on.

    Vermont Brewers Festival in Burlington

    Mid-July brings the Vermont Brewers Festival to the Burlington waterfront, July 17 and 18. It’s been running for decades now, and it’s the rare beer festival actually put on by the brewers themselves. Dozens of Vermont breweries, over a hundred beers, live music, food trucks, and Lake Champlain going gold behind it all as the sun drops toward the Adirondacks.

    If you want to feel the Burlington version of Vermont lifestyle in one evening, this is a strong contender. Walk it, bike it, or grab a rideshare, but don’t drive yourself home from this one.

    Best of Vermont Summer Festival in Ludlow

    Down in Ludlow, the Best of Vermont Summer Festival lands August 22 and 23 out at Okemo Field, eleven to five each day. Two days of music, artisans, cheese and maple makers, and craft beverage producers. It’s a tidy crash course in everything the state is proud of, which makes it a smart stop if you’re still figuring out the geography and the culture.

    New World Festival in Randolph

    And right at the seam between summer and fall, the New World Festival takes over downtown Randolph on September 6. It’s Vermont’s big Celtic and Québécois music celebration, more than thirty years deep now, with a dozen-plus acts across five stages, called dances, and street performers. Kids under twelve get in free.

    The sound of it spilling through a small downtown is something else. If you’ve got Maritime or French-Canadian roots, it hits somewhere tender.

    Why do people move to Vermont after a summer like this?

    I get asked some version of this a lot, usually by someone who came up for a long weekend and felt something they didn’t expect. The honest version of why people move to Vermont is rarely about a single festival. It’s about the accumulation.

    It’s the realization that an entire town will turn out for a strawberry shortcake. That a theater company will hand you free bread after a show about the state of the world. That the drive between two events is so consistently beautiful you stop minding the distance.

    Summer is when Vermont makes its best argument, and it keeps making it well past the Fourth of July. The festivals are scattered, sometimes inconvenient, often down a road you’ve never heard of. That’s the feature, not the flaw. They reward people willing to go a little out of their way, which, come to think of it, describes most of the folks who end up staying.

    I still drive up to Glover most summers. The bread tastes the same, the puppets are different every year, and the field is always full of people who, like me, decided the drive was the point.

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  • Vermont Living: The Allure of Community and Nature

    Vermont Living: The Allure of Community and Nature

    There is something that happens to people the first time they drive through Vermont in October. The hills go impossibly red and orange, the air has that cold-clean smell that wakes you right up, and somewhere along a two-lane road lined with sugar maples, the thought creeps in: what if I just stayed?

    For a lot of people, that thought eventually turns into a lease, then a purchase, then a whole life built around maple syrup, mud season, and knowing your neighbors by name. Vermont has been quietly pulling people in for decades, and the pace of that movement has only picked up over the last several years.

    So what is actually drawing people here? And once they arrive, what makes them stay? I have spent enough time talking with transplants and watching people settle into northern Vermont communities to have a pretty good sense of the answer. It is not one thing. It is a hundred small things that stack up.

    The Quality of Life Is Different Here

    People who move to Vermont from bigger cities often describe the shift in the same way. Life feels manageable again. The commute is short or gone entirely. The grocery store is not crowded. You can get a table at a restaurant on a Friday night without a reservation.

    That might sound small, but the cumulative effect of those frictions disappearing is significant. People report sleeping better, feeling less stressed, and actually having time to cook dinner or take a walk after work. There is a reason Vermont consistently ranks near the top of national health and wellbeing indexes. The pace here does something good for people.

    In Lamoille County and the towns around Stowe, Morrisville, Hyde Park, and Johnson, you also get access to outdoor recreation that most people in the country would have to drive hours to reach. Hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, mountain biking. It is not a weekend getaway. It is Tuesday evening after work.

    autumn road in vermont

    Remote Work Changed Everything

    The shift to remote work opened Vermont up to a wave of people who had always wanted to live here but assumed their careers would not allow it. Once the laptop became the office, suddenly the location question was wide open.

    Vermont leaned into this hard. The state launched a program called Remote Worker Grants that offered financial incentives for people who relocated here and worked remotely for out-of-state employers. It was one of the first programs of its kind in the country, and it attracted national attention. People who had been daydreaming about Vermont suddenly had a concrete reason to make the move.

    The timing lined up with something broader too. A lot of people spent the early 2020s reconsidering what they wanted from where they lived. Proximity to a downtown office became less important. Square footage, outdoor access, community connection, and affordability (relative to major metro areas) moved up the list. Vermont offered all of those things in a package that was genuinely hard to find elsewhere.

    Vermont Towns Actually Feel Like Communities

    This one is harder to quantify but it is probably the most important factor in why people stay. Vermont towns are real communities in a way that a lot of places in the country are not anymore.

    Town meeting is still a thing here. People show up on the first Tuesday of March and vote in person on local budgets, road projects, and school questions. You know your select board members. You run into your kids’ teachers at the farmers market. The librarian knows your name. These are not quaint nostalgic details. They are the texture of a life that feels connected and rooted.

    Small towns like Johnson and Hyde Park in Lamoille County have that quality in abundance. They are not destination towns. There are no ski resort gondolas or trendy restaurant strips. What they have is a tight fabric of people who look out for each other, volunteer for things, and show up when it matters. For people coming out of anonymous urban environments, that can feel genuinely revolutionary.

    The Outdoor Life Is Not a Selling Point, It Is the Point

    winter waking trail

    Anyone who moves to Vermont and does not end up spending real time outside is going to have a rough adjustment. The outdoors is not an amenity here. It is woven into how people structure their time and their relationships.

    In winter, that means skiing or snowshoeing or just learning to embrace cold in a way that you probably never did before. Stowe has some of the best terrain in the East. Bolton Valley, Smugglers Notch, and Jay Peak are all within easy reach of northern Vermont. Cross-country skiing trails run through the woods and across farm fields in a way that feels completely different from anything you find in more developed parts of the country.

    Spring and summer shift the whole rhythm. The Long Trail passes through, hiking options are everywhere, and the rivers come alive. Camping by a fire in the Green Mountains, cooking over an open flame with real wood smoke, watching the sky go dark without any light pollution competing with the stars. There is a quality to those evenings that is hard to describe to someone who has never experienced it.

    Fall is what gets people emotional. Leaf peeping in Vermont is not hype. It is genuinely one of the most beautiful seasonal transitions you will see anywhere in the world, and living here means you get to experience it every year instead of fighting traffic for one weekend of it.

    Vermont Is a Good Place to Raise a Family

    For people with kids, or thinking about having kids, Vermont tends to score very well on the things that matter most. Schools are generally strong, particularly in communities that are committed to them. The crime rate is among the lowest in the country. Kids here have a real childhood, with room to roam, clean air, and the kind of independence that is hard to give children in denser, more guarded environments.

    There is also something to be said for growing up in a place with four real seasons and deep roots in agriculture, craftsmanship, and community. Vermont has its own identity, and kids who grow up here tend to carry that with them. They learn where food comes from. They participate in town life. They develop a relationship with the land that most of their peers elsewhere simply do not have.

    The Food and Farm Culture Is the Real Deal

    Vermont has a food scene that punches way above its weight for a state with fewer than 650,000 people. The farm-to-table movement did not arrive here as a trend. It has always just been how things work when you are surrounded by working farms, sugar bushes, cheesemakers, and craft breweries.

    The farmers markets in towns like Morrisville and Stowe run through the growing season and draw incredible vendors. Local maple syrup shows up in everything from cocktails to glazed meats. The cheese alone is worth the move. Cabot, Jasper Hill, and dozens of smaller producers make Vermont one of the premier dairy and cheese regions in the country.

    For people who care about knowing where their food comes from, Vermont makes that easy. You can buy a half cow from a farm twenty minutes away. You can pick your own blueberries in August. You can get a CSA share that fills your fridge with vegetables you actually recognize and taste like something.

    porch with coffee during stick season

    What Keeps People Here Once They Arrive

    Moving anywhere requires optimism. Staying requires something deeper. The people who put down real roots in Vermont tend to point to the same things: the sense of belonging, the physical beauty that never gets old, and the feeling that their choices and their values are reflected in the community around them.

    Vermont is not a perfect place. Winters are long and genuinely cold. The housing market in desirable areas has gotten more competitive in recent years. There are rural access challenges and income gaps that are real. Anyone considering a move here should come with eyes open to the full picture.

    But the people who stay do so because something clicks into place here that did not click before. The pace fits. The community holds. The view from the front porch on a clear November morning makes everything feel worth it. That is a hard thing to walk away from once you have found it.

    Thinking About Making the Move to Vermont?

    If you are somewhere in the research phase, the best thing you can do is spend real time here across different seasons. A long weekend in July is beautiful. A week in February will tell you a lot more about whether Vermont is actually right for you.

    Northern Vermont in particular, the towns spread across Lamoille County and the surrounding areas, offers a version of this state that is less about tourism infrastructure and more about actual Vermont life. It is quieter, more affordable than the resort towns, and full of the kind of community fabric that people who end up staying here are usually looking for.

    Come with curiosity. Take your time. Talk to people. Vermont has a way of telling you whether it is the right fit, and it does not usually take long.

    Vermont has been here a long time. It is not going anywhere. Take your time getting here right.