2025 Vermont Travel Guide | Hotels, Dining & Attractions

Whether you’re a lifelong Vermonter or planning your first getaway to the Green Mountain State, the Editors’ Picks in our 2025 Vermont Travel Guide highlight the best places to eat, stay, and explore across the region. Curated by the Yankee team with insights from local experts, these handpicked spots capture the flavor, charm, and spirit that make Vermont so special. From cozy inns and farm-to-table feasts to artisan shops and scenic outdoor adventures, this guide is your go-to for experiencing the very best of Vermont this year.

Best Places to Visit in Vermont | 2025 Editors’ Picks

2025 Best Vermont Hotels

Best Affordable Overnight: COHO Inn & Motor Lodge, Weston

While the former Colonial House Inn is still a stopover on the long-standing Vermont Inn-to-Inn Walking Tour, owners Ali and Lane Knaack have been busy forging their own path since taking over in May 2024: rebranding, refreshing, and renovating (the last part being ongoing, with the goal of bringing AC units and other upgrades to the COHO’s midcentury motel annex). The couple’s personal touch can be seen, too, in the wealth of snowboarding books and memorabilia on hand (Lane is a former pro) and the curated offerings of local beer, wine, and charcuterie; outside are Ali’s flower beds, which have been known to yield fresh-cut blooms for the main inn and dining room.

Best Historic Inn: The Tillerman, Bristol

A rambling 1790s structure and seven cheery, gable-ceilinged guest rooms are the historic part, while the food and drink are thoroughly modern. The seasonally changing menu relies on local farms, and mozzarella is made in-house. Best seats? The dining rooms are lovely, but sip a Vermont brew or craft cocktail in the clubby parlor, then amble over to the bar for a distinctively garnished pizza—and taste why The Tillerman earned a 2024 Yankee Food Award for its pies.

Best Inn Cuisine: Derby Line Village Inn, Derby Line

A white mansion located less than a mile from the Canadian border is the domain of Austrian chef-owner Fritz Halbedl, whose menu showcases his native fare—schnitzel in a choice of traditional preparations, sauerbraten, spaetzle, and the sweet soufflé known as Salzburger nockerl—plus a selection of steak, pasta, and seafood dishes, and Austrian wines. Upstairs are five sumptuously furnished guest rooms; the “Majesty” is our favorite.

Best Island Camping: Burton Island State Park, St. Albans

Surrounded by the waters of Lake Champlain but just a 10-minute passenger ferry ride from companion state park Kill Kare, Burton Island offers tent sites, lean-tos, and three cabins. There’s a surprisingly cosmopolitan feel here, as the park is frequented by Quebec boaters who use its marina and enjoy the Burton Island Bistro, with its wine selection and homemade omelets.

Best Rustic Retreat: Quimby Country, Averill

Tucked between Forest and Big Averill lakes—and set deep in an early 1900s North Woods dreamscape—the 19 cozy cottages at Quimby Country have welcomed generations of rusticating families. High-summer accommodations include three hearty meals a day in the lodge; in shoulder seasons, there’s a B&B plan. All cottages have woodstoves, and some have full kitchens, too.

2025 Best Vermont Restaurants

Best Artisan Chocolates: Tavernier Chocolates, Brattleboro

Tavernier combines fine chocolate from Ecuadorian cacao trees with locally sourced and endlessly inventive ingredients—think wild peppermint, spruce needles, morel mushrooms, even slow-cured organic garlic. Along with bars and boxed individual bonbons, specialties include drinking chocolate and “chocolate charcuterie,” a sliceable pâté with flavors ranging from miso to maple, chèvre to lavender.

Best Diner: The Country Girl Diner, Chester

Everything seems to take on a relaxed, mid-20th-century feel when you chow down on a towering Texas burger heaped with onion rings, a stack of plate-size pancakes, or a slab of one of co-owner Jess Holmes’s peanut butter pies. She uses Vermont eggs, Cabot butter, and local maple syrup in the kitchen at this beautifully preserved diner, a 1944 Silk City classic.

Best Drive-In Restaurant: A&W, Middlebury

No, the servers don’t roller-skate to your car. But they do take your order there, and ferry your tray right to the rolled-down window of your—well, probably not a ’59 Chevy. Burgers, fries, hand-breaded chicken tenders, Coney dogs, and, of course, that famous frosty-mug-taste root beer are all featured at this veritable museum of delicious roadside eats.

Best Farm-to-Table Dining: Maple Soul, Rochester

Better to call it “farmer-to-table”: When dinner service gets under way at this comfortably elegant eatery in a former late-1800s home, the patrons tucking into executive chef Jim Huntington’s pitch-perfect cornbread, baby-back ribs, and other down-home fare might include the very folks who provided the ingredients. Not only does Maple Soul partner with 30-plus local farmers and producers, says general manager Jen Huntington, but “we always welcome them here to see what we’re doing with their product, to be part of the conversation.” Similarly, the Huntingtons make a point of visiting their partners’ operations, which include their sole chicken provider, Happy Bird in Isle La Motte, and regular microgreens supplier Uphill Farm, right in Rochester. The result is a New England–meets–North Carolina menu with a lot of maple, a lot of soul, and a lot of integrity … which means a lot of fans, too, so reservations are strongly advised.

Best Italian Grocery: AR Market, Barre

Vermont’s most historically Italian city has the Italian market it deserves. With its initials representing alimentari (groceries) and Roscini (a family surname of Italian-born owner Peter Colman), AR Market offers shelves packed with imported Di Martino and Rustichella pastas, San Marzano tomatoes grown in Campania’s volcanic soil, almond cantucci and amaretti, fine olive oils, and much more. Colman’s other business, Vermont Salumi, smokes and cures on-site, and there’s a wood-fired pizzeria next door.

Best Locavore Butcher Shop: Roma’s Butchery, South Royalton

The village meat market is back, thanks to master butcher Elizabeth Roma and her custom-cut, head-to-tail butcher shop. Drawing on more than a dozen farms within a 25-mile radius, Roma does pork, lamb, poultry, and grass-fed beef in a variety of cuts. She makes her own sausage, too, and offers handcrafted salumi from Waitsfield’s Babette’s Table.

Best Small Plates: Frankie’s, Burlington

Hen of the Wood alums Jordan Ware and Cindi Kozak have brought new energy to the space formerly occupied by the late-lamented Penny Cluse Café, creating an ever-changing menu where small plates—perhaps littleneck clams with charred-scallion butter and house focaccia, or pork croquettes with pickled rhubarb sauce—are the stars. Just don’t call them starters: Double up, and that steak entrée might have to wait for next time.

Best Winery: Whaleback Vineyard, Poultney

A restored 19th-century barn near the waters of Lake Saint Catherine is the home base for this Stone Valley winery. Whaleback’s grapevines number more than 6,000 plants across nine beautiful acres, all helping to produce a range of only-in-the-Green-Mountain-State favorites, from the Vermont Apple Blend fruit wine to Whaleback’s signature white, Moonlight in Vermont. Drink up the setting in the farm’s tasting room, set inside a Colonial farmhouse.

2025 Best Vermont Attractions

Best Family Attraction: Great Vermont Corn Maze, Danville

Polite Vermonters won’t tell you to get lost—unless they’re talking about New England’s largest and most challenging corn maze, 24 acres of frustrating fun that’s taken ears and ears to create. A new design takes shape each season, which begins in late July when the stalks grow tall and runs through mid-October. Afraid you’ll never get out? Try the “Scenic Maze” route, which comes with directions.

Best Moderate Hike: Jerusalem Trail, Starksboro

The 2.4-mile Jerusalem Trail starts off gently, at Jim Dwire Road, and remains deceptively easy until you duck under a sap line and cross a logging road. Watch for blue blazes as you scramble over rocks to meet the Long Trail. Turn left, and it’s a short hike down to the Green Mountain Club’s Glen Ellen Lodge. Take a right, and in another 1.8 miles you’ll be atop 4,083-foot Mount Ellen.

Best Mountain Biking: Millstone Trails, Barre

In a state with serious trail-riding cred, Barre’s former quarry lands are a haven for newbies and experienced pros alike. The rocky playground boasts more than 30 miles of trails across 1,500 acres of ever-changing terrain. Cruise into the season along the large, gentle loops in the Barre Town Forest or take on the steeper climbs of Millstone Hill and its “Gnome Man’s Land,” whose trails live up to names like Roller Coaster, Vortex, and Screaming Demon. Fascinating quarry relics and scenic overlooks are sprinkled throughout (don’t miss the dramatic east-facing Sunrise Lookout, which sits atop the plunging rock walls of an abandoned quarry).

Best Outdoor Footwear: Farm-Way, Bradford

Though muck boots remain a fixture at this haven for everything outdoorsy, the offerings venture way off the farm: from sandals and sneakers to hiking boots and, yes, clogs. Brands include Merrell, Blundstone, Keen, OluKai, and even exquisitely crafted hikers made by Italy’s Zamberlan. Inventory runs deep for men, women, and kids, and there’s plenty of staff around to help with try-ons.

Best Performing Arts Venue: Chandler Center for the Arts, Randolph

When Upper Valley Baroque artistic director Filippo Ciabatti first visited the Chandler, he clapped his hands in the middle of the hall to get a sense of the acoustics. He was immediately impressed, as are the audiences at this 1907 gem, a gift of Randolph native Albert Chandler. Along with concerts in varied genres, the Chandler hosts theater and dance (the Grand Kyiv Ballet was a recent visitor), and Randolph’s late-summer New World Festival is a perennial favorite. 

Best Retail Hub: The Essex Experience, Essex

Fast food and fast fashion, begone. At this former outlet mall, a Main Street vibe pulses through 20-plus independent shops and restaurants that include the state’s largest collection of Vermont art and crafts (ArtHound Gallery) and a small-batch distillery and brewery with a James Beard semifinalist in the kitchen (Black Flannel and Christian Kruse, respectively). Also local-leaning are the music and events at the Double E cultural hub, where a rescued 1700s barn serves as an outdoor stage. Even that shopping-mall staple, the cineplex (Essex Cinemas), channels the kind of small-town theater where blockbusters share billing with classic, indie, and international films.

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