Ten Great Things to Do in Southern Vermont

A Southern Vermont vacation is just quick jaunt from the big cities.

A short drive from New York and Boston, Southern Vermont has it all: ski resorts, historic sites, outlet shopping, beautiful village greens, cozy inns and B&Bs and other lodgings, fall foliage, and a covered bridge here and there for emphasis. The large ski areas -- Stratton, Bromley, Magic Mountain, and Mount Snow -- offer winter activities from downhill skiing to snow tubing to snowboarding, as well as lots of warm-weather fun, including excellent golf courses. Shopping venues run from intimate settings, like the Apple Barn in Bennington (maple syrup and Vermont cheeses are featured items, but don’t miss a walk through the corn maze in the fall), to the extensive outlets of Manchester, sometimes called the “Fifth Avenue of the Green Mountains.” Leaf peepers are wise to step indoors briefly and visit historical sites, like the Bennington Battlefield, or museums, like the Norman Rockwell Exhibition in Arlington or the Bennington Museum and Grandma Moses Gallery. State parks satisfy every taste with their hiking and biking trails, camping, fishing, padding, and other outdoor sports. For those who overdo on the trails and have the muscle spasms to prove it – or just for the pure fun of it – therapeutic massage and other spa treatments can be found at the Equinox in Manchester Center as well as at many other resorts. A Vermont vacation simply requires a love for natural beauty -- Vermont will supply the rest.

Some of the principal towns are Brattleboro, arty and bohemian; Marlboro, home of the eponymous college and chamber music festival; Naulakha, the home of the author Rudyard Kipling, in Dummerston; Wilmington, on beautiful Route 9, with a downtown that includes the Crafts Inn, a Shingle-style hotel designed by Stanford White; Bennington, with the Bennington Monument, a towering obelisk with expansive views on all sides; Arlington, home of Norman Rockwell and the Norman Rockwell Exhibit; Manchester, with so many outlets it is dubbed “the Fifth Avenue of the Green Mountains”; and Putney, boasting an interesting downtown with many early 19th-century structures.

Ten Great Things to Do in Southern Vermont