USA Guide
New England
Vermont
Vermont comes closer than any other New England state to realizing the quintessential image of small-town America, with its white churches and red barns, covered bridges and clapboard houses, snowy woods and maple syrup. The largest city, Burlington, approaches a population of just forty thousand, and the chief tourist attraction is Ben & Jerry's ice-cream factory in Waterbury. Though rural, the landscape is not all that agricultural, as much of it is covered by mountainous forests (the state's name comes from the French vert mont, or "green mountain").
With the occasional exception, such as the extraordinary assortment of Americana at the Shelburne Museum near Burlington, there are few specific goals for tourists. Visitors come in great numbers during two well-defined seasons: to see the fall foliage in the first two weeks of October, and to ski in the depths of winter, when the resorts of Killington, and Stowe further north (home of The Sound of Music's Von Trapp family), spring into life. For the rest of the year, you might just as well explore any of the state's minor roads, confident that some picturesque village will appear around the next corner.