The Best Vacation You’ve Never Taken

May 9

Vermont is not on the list for many people to visit. It doesn’t carry the same mystique as the Grand Canyon or deliver the same excitement as a weekend at the beach. This is truly just a problem of not knowing what you're missing. Vermont wasn’t on our list either, but now we are confident it may be the best vacation you’ve never taken.

Vermont is home to unique things. This state does many things differently that give it a distinctive vibe. A lot of these peculiarities (we will talk about those later) play into the special experiences here. The state frowns upon cookie cutter box-stores and people are avid DIYers instead. This expressly shows up the culinary masterpieces created at almost every place you choose to dine. You simply will have a hard time finding bad food as a result. Let me start by saying, we could choose to brag on any place, but we have chosen Vermont as a highlight for a reason. Here are some of those reasons we believe Vermont is a great place to holiday and why it should move further up your “places to go” list.

The Scenery

Simply put, Vermont is a beautiful state. But there are a lot of beautiful landscapes across our country, so, what makes Vermont unique to other locales in the northeast? Noticeably, a law that passed in the late 1960’s banning billboards and keeping all signage at a low height. You might not be able to imagine the effect this has on the landscapes until you cross the river to New Hampshire and see the same landscapes but obstructed. Driving through the whole state of Vermont is simply an unimpeded visual delight. The terrain is somewhat similar from the north part to the south part of the state except the mountains become more pronounced and larger around the Stowe area in the north. That observation is true from Connecticut to Vermont, the hills become bigger to the eye until they are mountains as you head north. All the seasons are charming here. Spring gives you the various greens in full display as the trees awaken from their winter nap. Summer is an outdoor treat of ideal temperatures in the “green state” and fall finally turns all of the green to a rich and vibrant palette of magnificent colors second to none. And then there is winter. You better like snow if you attend a Vermont winter. Many people around the north east do love snow and this in return creates an influx of adventurers wanting to escape the cities (New York & Boston) and head to Vermont for some down time. City people need to slow down while for a while and enjoy world class skiing too. It’s common to see a deep powdery snow that overlays the landscape like a wool blanket. No matter when you go, you are sure to get views of nature that are breathtaking. The things you will see in Vermont’s nature vary greatly. The same mountains that give you a green glow in the spring will at sunset turn to a spectacular skyline with varied color. Other peaks gave us remnants of snow left from ski season in spring. You will constantly observe streams and creeks muddling through the mountain sides. Low lands that have collected standing water become an attraction for wildlife like moose and wood ducks. There are no shortage of rocks, they are plentiful indeed and make up part of the states individuality. The houses have largely a “cottage” look in many places and sprinkled throughout are modernists homes being built in the midst of the surrounding beauty. Lakes, mountains, fishing, skiing, dining, hiking, resting, biking, shopping, exploring, history, it’s all here to experience.

Things To Do & Places to Stay

Depending on the time of year, what you do will vary. The Trapp Family Lodge is a great place to stay and offers something fun to do in every season. This Lodge was built and owned by the Von Trapp family. The father was a briliant WW1 navy officer and Hitler wanted him for WW2. Being firmly pitted gainst the Nazi’s the family escaped to America. The classic movie “The Sound of Music” is about this family. There are tours about the history of the lodge, tours of the farm with the highland cattle and sheep, and my favorite, the sugar shack maple syrup tour. On site is a great German restaurant that is excellent and fresh in every regard and a coffee & pastry shop that apologizes to no one. Now would be a good time to add that everything you do here is quality. The tours, the food, and the lodging are top notch. In the winter, this becomes a ski resort and is world famous for that. Snowboarding is also a thing here and if you want to learn there are flat places and classes designated for that purpose. In the spring the Trapp Family Lodge becomes a maple syrup producer offering samples to guests who take the tour; we got in on that. The Lodge and its properties are simply quaint & charming. Most days you can find the actually family here and the grandson signing books at the end of a tour!

There are also plenty of lodges, hotels & rental options nestled away in a remote part of a mountain somewhere if that’s your jam instead in regards to places to stay.

A fascinating Vermont (and new north east) thing is the frequent findings of covered bridges. I freely admit that others may not find this so intriguing, but if you love the concept of a covered bridge or American history, this is a must do. New England is riddled with such, and I have been fascinated with the concept ever since I watched Disney’s version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for the first time. A covered bridge is how you made a bridge in our nation’s beginning. They are beautiful architectural masterpieces. If seeing still used remnants of the past captivates you, then you can pull up a list of covered bridges online. They are not hard to find.

Concerning things to do, here is a list of things that we enjoyed as a family. By name, some of these offerings may not look exciting on the surface, but we found that to be deceiving. We learned that Vermont does not oversell, it rather undersells and over delivers.

The Church Street Marketplace (Burlington)
The Vermont Teddy Bear Factory
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory
Sunset Rock
Lake Champlain (Home of Champy!)
Vermont Antique Mall (Don’t let the name throw you - its’ super good with a toy museum & you’ll meet Alpacas too!)
Mt Mansfield
Lincoln Family Home (built by Abraham Lincoln’s son)
Brattleboro’s Farmers Market
Skiing
Maple sugar farms
Try artisan coffee’s from a local roastery
Take the Green Mountain Railroad
See Smugglers Notch
Visit Paramount Theatre (built in 1913 and is ornate and opulent. Feel “high class” and sit where the gentlemen did in yesteryears. Still has a working organ because silent films were the thing when it was built)
Take a boat ride on Lake Champlain
Tour the “Rock of Ages” quarry and factory
Stay in Stowe and enjoy “living there” for a couple of days (everything you do will be great)
Visit the Cold Hollow Cider Mill
Find a central location and make a day out of each town you visit. It is a change of pace in Vermont, and it’s hard to put in words how relaxing a busy day can be while vacationing here.

Morrisville Vermont Mountians — Morrisville Vermont

Now for the culinary part of Vermont. To give you the spirit of how the state views its food, they take pride in being the only state whose capital doesn’t have a McDonalds in the town. That, in and of itself, tells a grandiose story about cuisine. Surprisingly, most food was comparable in price, but refreshingly, a chain restaurant was hard to be found. Even more exciting, we did not eat one bad meal while here. Not one. That has never happened in the history of vacations. The closest we ever came to this was our Virgin Voyage cruise which took the dining up to another level and made me rename all other cruises as “old fashioned cruises.” The people in Vermont make almost all of their own foods. They make, raise or farm their own cheese ( it was a 10/10), coffee, apple cider, maple syrup, beef, fish and pretty much whatever else you can think of. Far be it from Vermonters to let a CEO on Wall Street tell them what good food tastes like when there it is measured solely by the income it generates. Vermont taught me you don’t have to settle for bad food, or even mediocre food when you go out to eat. And you don’t have to pay $100 a plate to get outstanding food quality either.

Maple syrup goes in or on everything, if you want it too. I know some people are skeptical. I even road into town with a van full of people convinced they did not like maple syrup except on the occasional waffle. After all, that is all Floridians know to do with syrup, put it on waffles or pancakes. By the time we left, everyone was ordering pretty much everything with maple. First, I assume you know the difference between real maple syrup and the stuff you buy at the store for two bucks that is made out of 45 ingredients that you can’t pronounce except for corn syrup. This has one ingredient, which is, maple syrup. It is the perfect sweetener for coffee. Yes, it’s still sugar but not as bad as refined white sugar for those who care. Vermont was the nations highest producer of maple syrup last year and watching the process is amazing. Nothing is a fresh as when it is first made. The syrup comes in a golden, amber, and dark color, each with different tastes and according to what each trees produces that year.

Fresh cider is also best when freshly pressed. You think you have had good cider, then you try this and realize there is another level. The Cold Hollow Cider Mill is where you should visit for fresh cider. Vermont cheddar, whether sharp yellow or white cheddar is fresh and addicting. Now let’s mention everyones favorite, coffee. I have found few local places that I like better than Starbucks as far as taste goes. My uncle has one I like better, there are a couple of local places in the area I live, but most fall short. Every coffee house we tried here gets an A++ for quality. It’s like everyone in Vermont roasts their own coffee and is a chef too. Speaking of a chef, Micheal’s on the Hill is chef-owned and the darling of the Stowe / Waterbury area. Date night? This is where you will want to go. Make reservations and come hungry but not hangry as it a classy establishment. For a tie in to home, he even worked at Disney’s Food & Wine Festival.

Did we mention yet that Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream began here? Yep, and you can tour the original factory complete with a sample of the flavor of the day. After the tour, visit the “flavor graveyard” to see where flavors that weren’t quite “lively enough” are buried. Then, if you aren’t tempted to stay and play on their modern upscale playground, go to the scoop shop and have every flavor they offer, some of which you won’t find in store. I had the classic Cherry Garcia. I would have loved any flavor as they are all premium. The tour itself will need tickets, which do sell out, so be sure to check online for ticket prices and availability before your trip. Our tour lasted about 45 minutes. Everything else operates as a normal business and the playground is freely accessible without purchase. Good to know just in case I… I mean the kids… want to go back.

Lake Champlain is absolutely stunning. There are many places to access this legandry lake. The local shops and food stops are sure to play on “Champy” invoking his name on their products. Champy, is Lake Champlain’s version of the Lochness monster. Though it is tempting to claim we saw him, we didn’t. On the other side of the lake is New York State. It is almost unbelievable to know you are looking at New York mountains that are just a ferry ride away. Boat rides are easy to find and many people were in paddle boats or canoes. Thankfully, the common “lake effect” wasn’t happening around Burlington, VT even though we were on Champlain. The “lake effect” is when everything is fried shrimp and boat shoes because you are next to a lake and it happens almost everywhere. Here, it was like a town that had forgotten it was on a lake.

Some unique things about Vermont you will enjoy are the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory and the Rock of Ages granite quarry. I went into both not as excited as I should have been. I am usually skeptical until given a reason to be proven otherwise. If you have children or enjoy teddy bears (named after Teddy Roosevelt) or have a space of time open in Shelburne do this tour then make a bear (or another animal) at the end. Any adult will enjoy the Rock of Ages granite tour. It is amazing how much rock they have already quarried here. It is estimated that at current rate this spot will yield some of the worlds most sought after granite for over 4,000 more years.

Vermont may always be the best vacation we never knew we wanted. For starters, if you want to get away from the daily grind and do something different for a week, this may be what your looking for. We, the entire family, thoroughly enjoyed the scenic views this state offered, the cozy country stores, the way above average foods, the tours, the unique geography / geology (including a glacial kettle near sunset rock in Stowe) and the fresh crisp mountain air. What I really appreciated is although we had plenty to do, we were never so distracted that we lost focus on each other. It was just the pace many may want and I am not surprised that I saw license plates from Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Connecticut, and more. They have figured out the secret of Vermont. Unless you ski, you may not want to come back every year, but if you go once, you will probably come back at some point a second time.

Now for the grand finale, the very thing you need to try - it’s a right of passage, it’s a must do, it’s a local thing that they never get tired of, it’s the most spectacular offering of the north east - it is creemee. The spelling is correct. This is what the people of Vermont call soft serve ice cream. However, the twist here is (no pun intended) they mix the vanilla with freshly tapped maple syrup. How does it rate? Just listen to this quote and decide for yourself. “It is the best soft serve you will ever have.” - Everyone. I know you are skeptical, I know you may not like maple, but you are underestimating this gem. Just remember there’s always a reason a legend becomes a legend.

Want to see Vermont yourself? We have a flexible itinerary for you to enjoy. There is no extra cost to you, not a penny more, and you get the aid of one of the nations best travel agents with Travelmation. Click “get a quote” for a free no-obligation quote for your Vermont getaway or any other escape! Now, enjoy some pictures of Vermont’s beautiful scenery!