By tag cloud
arts & entertainment attractions biking boating food & drink hiking parks swimming
At-a-glance:
Search:

A local's guide to seizing the summer

Summer in Vermont is short, but it’s arguably the best time to see the place, whether you’re a tourist or live here year-round. The Seven Days Summer Vacation Picks aim to clue long- and short-distance travelers into what we consider to be the quintessential Vermont experience.

Choose a region below for our picks and links to Seven Days restaurant reviews, articles and video about that area.

Choose a region:
Vermont Summer Vacation Regions
Burlington
Chittenden County
Middlebury Area
Champlain Islands/Northwest
Stowe/Smuggs Area
Barre/Montpelier
Northeast Kingdom
Mad River Valley/Waterbury
Upper Valley
Rutland Area
Manchester & Bennington
Brattleboro Area

Explore Vermont!

Roadtrip

“Green” as it is, Vermont is a driver’s dream come true. The traffic is minimal. It’s never too hot. The roads are beautiful — if you don’t mind two-lane thoroughfares and the occasional frost heave. And gas is cheap — sorta.

Exploring the state by car only makes sense in the summer — the other eight months of the year it can be life-threatening.

It helps to have a theme to guide you: Members of the state’s “251 Club” strive to visit every town in Vermont. We propose some other motivators, including berry farms, breweries, vineyards and artisan cheese makers.

Seven Days Pick: Food & Drink
Grafton Valley Cheese
Say Artisan Cheese

The money’s funny in milk — farmers can’t control the price they get for it. So increasingly, Vermonter dairy people are turning to cheese-making to keep their cows in clover. The past decade has seen an explosion of not just upscale artisan cheddar but Vermont-made blue, goat, gorgonzola, sheep and buffalo mozzarella. About half of the state’s 30-some artisan cheese operations welcome visitors. A few suggestions: Grafton Village Cheese (pictured), Green Mountain Blue Cheese in Highgate, Shelburne Farms, Milton’s Willow Hill and Vermont Butter and Cheese in Websterville.

cheese directory | all food & drink

Seven Days Pick: Food & Drink
Berries
Berry Nice

Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples... it seems there’s always something to pluck from Vermont’s fruited plain. In the Seven Days distribution area, there are literally dozens of farms and orchards that double as pick-your-own operations. Owl’s Head Berry Farm in Richmond hired bands to play on Tuesday and Thursday nights during blueberry season. There’s also Charlotte Berry Farm, Pelkey’s, Last Resort, Harris and more.

berry picking directory | all food & drink

Seven Days Pick: Food & Drink
Apples
Cider Side

The French have been drinking cidre for centuries. Vermont is just catching on to the hard side of America’s most iconic fruit. Nonetheless, there are apples to be pressed, sampled and sometimes fermented in orchards all over the state. Flag Hill Farm in Vershire is making alcoholic cider; it’s about as strong as beer. Shelburne Orchards makes a great ginger-echinacea blend.

apple orchard directory | all food & drink

Seven Days Pick: Food & Drink
Beer
True Brew

You can’t get much further from Busch country... than a microbrew tour of Vermont. Folks have been making better beer here since before the anti-Bud revolution. At least five places make the process public. We’re not suggesting that you drink and drive, but they’re Harpoon, Otter Creek, Rock Art, Magic Hat and Switchback, in Windsor, Middlebury, Morrisville, South Burlington and Burlington, respectively. Many other places make their own, and you can taste the difference: Check out Vermont Pub and Brewery, American Flatbread and Three Needs in Burlington; Waterbury’s The Alchemist and The Shed in Stowe; The Bobcat Cafe in Bristol and Barre’s brand-new Granite City Brewing.

brewery directory | all food & drink

Seven Days Pick: Food & Drink
Casserole
Church-Supper Circuit

There’s a church supper at the First Congregational Church of Fair Haven on the second Saturday of every month. That’s as much advance warning as you’ll ever get to the community chow-downs all over Vermont. Advertised by hand-painted signs, the state’s fish fries, ham suppers and chicken barbecues tend to happen in small towns where there is a strong sense of community. It’s typically “all the food you can eat, at a price that’s hard to beat,” as the Fair Haven website notes. But there’s an asterisk affixed to that slogan: “one dessert per person.”

all food & drink

 
All Rights Reserved © Da Capo Publishing Inc. 1995-2013 | PO Box 1164, Burlington, VT 05402-1164 | 802-864-5684