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48 hours in Vermont
A tight 2-day loop from Burlington to Stowe that hits the state's best trails, breweries, and a covered bridge or two along the way.
· 7 min read
Day 1: Burlington and the lake
Start with coffee at Onyx Tonics on Main Street, then walk the Burlington Bike Path from Perkins Pier to North Beach — it's an easy 8 miles of paved lakefront riding. Rent from Local Motion at 1 Steele Street for around $30 for a half day. Grab a maple creemee at Burlington Bay Market and eat it staring at the Adirondacks across Lake Champlain.
For lunch, head to the Skinny Pancake on Lake Street for a $12 buckwheat crepe. Spend the afternoon at the ECHO Leahy Center ($19.50 adult) or wander Church Street Marketplace. Dinner at Honey Road, then Foam Brewers on the waterfront for a Built To Spill IPA around $7.
Day 2: Stowe and Smugglers' Notch
Drive 45 minutes east on I-89 to Stowe. Ride or hike the 5.3-mile Stowe Recreation Path — flat, paved, and gorgeous alongside the West Branch River. Mountain bikers should hit Cady Hill Forest instead; the Florence and Bear's Trail loops are legendary singletrack, free to ride.
Drive Route 108 through Smugglers' Notch (closed in winter) and stop at Bingham Falls for a short 0.4-mile hike to swimming holes. Cap the day at The Alchemist in Stowe for a $19 four-pack of Heady Topper, then dinner at Doc Ponds on Mountain Road.
Where to sleep
In Burlington, Hotel Vermont on Cherry Street runs $260-380 and is walkable to everything. Budget: Made INN Vermont B&B from $185. In Stowe, the Green Mountain Inn on Main Street is the classic pick around $220 off-season, or Field Guide Lodge on Mountain Road for a more design-forward stay from $195. Both put you within 10 minutes of trailheads.
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Vermont Hotel Destinations: how this site works
This is a curated guide to staying across the whole of Vermont, not just Burlington. We cover Burlington and the Lake Champlain shore, Stowe and the Mount Mansfield corridor, Woodstock and the Ottauquechee valley, Manchester in the southern Greens, and the Northeast Kingdom around Craftsbury, Greensboro and Jay Peak. The editorial angle is nature-first: trailheads you can walk to, Kingdom Trails mountain biking access, and inns that actually compost and source from local farms.
We are not the booking engine. Tapping See price hands you to app.impt.io, which aggregates over 8 million hotels at the same price or better than booking direct. Every booking funds one verified tonne of carbon removal at no extra cost to you. The room rate is identical to what you would pay on the big sites; the difference is that a tonne of CO2 gets pulled from the atmosphere on the way through.
Where to stay: Burlington, Stowe, Woodstock, Manchester, Northeast Kingdom
Burlington is the base for lake swims off North Beach and easy access to the 14-mile Island Line Trail causeway ride out to South Hero. Stay near Church Street if you want to walk to dinner at Hen of the Wood or American Flatbread. Stowe suits mountain bikers heading for Cady Hill and Perry Hill and skiers riding Mount Mansfield; the Mountain Road strip between the village and the resort is where most inns cluster. Woodstock is quieter, wealthier, and centered on the green with the Billings Farm and Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park a short walk away.
Manchester splits between the historic Equinox area and outlet-strip motels on Route 7A, with the Long Trail crossing just east at Bromley. The Northeast Kingdom is the wildest option: East Burke for the Kingdom Trails network (over 100 miles of singletrack), Greensboro for Caspian Lake and Hill Farmstead beer, Craftsbury for Nordic skiing and sculling. Distances between these regions are real: Burlington to East Burke is about 90 minutes, Woodstock to Manchester about an hour on Route 4 and 7.