The Green Mountain State, Vermont's rolling hills, shaggy peaks, and towns clustered along river valleys give it a distinct sense of place. Still primarily rural, Vermont is filled with dairy farms, dirt roads, and small-scale enterprises. The towns and hills are home to an intriguing mix of old-time Vermonters and back-to-the-landers who showed up in VW microbuses in the 1960s and stayed, many getting involved with municipal affairs.





Without feeling in the least like a theme park, Vermont captures a sense of America as it once was. Vermonters still share a strong sense of community, and they still respect the ideals of thrift and parsimony. They prize their small villages and towns, and they understand what makes them special. Vermont's governor once said that one of the state's special traits was in knowing "where our towns begin and end." It seems a simple notion, but that speaks volumes when one considers the erosion of identity that has afflicted many small towns swallowed up by one creeping megalopolis after another.

For travelers, Vermont is a great destination for long country drives, mountain rambles, and overnights at country inns. A good map opens the door to countless back-road adventures. It's not hard to get a taste of Vermont's way of life. You'll find it in almost all of the small towns and villages. And they are small--let the numbers tell the story: Burlington, Vermont's largest city, has just 39,127 residents; Montpelier, the state capital, 8,247; Brattleboro, 8,612; Bennington, 9,532; Woodstock, 1,037; Newfane, 164. The state's entire population is just 608,000--making it one of a handful of states with more senators than representatives in Congress.

Of course, numbers don't tell the whole story. You have to let the people do that. One of Vermont's better-known former residents, Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis, wrote more than 70 years ago: "I like Vermont because it is quiet, because you have a population that is solid and not driven mad by the American mania--that mania which considers a town of 4,000 twice as good as a town of 2,000. Following that reasoning, one would get the charming paradox that Chicago would be 10 times better than the entire state of Vermont, but I have been in Chicago and not found it so." With all respect to readers from Chicago, these words still hold true today.





Southern and central Vermont is defined by rolling hills, shady valleys, and historic villages. Throughout you'll find antiques shops and handsome inns, fast-flowing streams and inviting restaurants. It's anchored at each corner by the towns of Bennington and Brattleboro; between them and running northward is the spine of the Green Mountains, much of which is part of the Green Mountain National Forest, and all of which rewards explorers who find dirt roads an irresistible temptation. Here and there are remnants of former industries--marble quarrying around Rutland, converging train tracks at White River Junction--but mostly it's rural living, with cow pastures high on the hills, old clapboard farmhouses under spreading trees, maple-sugaring operations come spring, and the distant sound of timber being twitched out of a woodlot on the far side of a high ridge. The steep-sided hills also host many of the state's most popular ski resorts, such as Okemo, Killington, Sugarbush, and Mount Snow.