Itineraries

48 hours in Vermont

Two days is enough to hit Burlington, taste 3 local cheeses, and stand on a covered bridge — if you plan tight and drive smart.

· 6 min read

Day 1: Burlington and Lake Champlain

Start on Church Street Marketplace with a maple latte from Muddy Waters on Main Street (around $5). Walk down to the ECHO Center on College Street for the lake, then rent a bike at Local Motion on the waterfront ($30 for a half day) and ride the Island Line out toward the Colchester Causeway. Back in town, lunch at American Flatbread on St. Paul Street for a wood-fired pie (around $18). End with sunset at Battery Park and dinner at Hen of the Wood on Bank Street — book a week ahead.

Day 2: Stowe and Waterbury

Drive I-89 south 40 minutes to Waterbury. Ben & Jerry's factory tour on Route 100 costs $6 and takes 30 minutes with samples. Continue north to Stowe: hike Sterling Pond off the Route 108 notch (2.4 miles, closed in winter) or ride the gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort ($34). Eat lunch at The Bench on Mountain Road for wood-fired flatbread and Vermont beer. Stop at Cold Hollow Cider Mill on the way back for a $2 cider donut before returning to Burlington.

Where to sleep

Base yourself in Burlington to skip repeat drives. Hotel Vermont on Cherry Street is the sharp choice at $280-$380; the Made INN Vermont B&B on North Willard runs about $220 with breakfast. Budget travelers should look at North Beach Campground on Institute Road ($40 tent, walk to town) or the Burlington Hostel on Main Street from $55. Avoid staying in Stowe unless you’re skiing — the drive back on Route 100 after dinner is dark and full of moose.

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Plan your days here

📍 Places to visit

Walk Church Street end to end

Sunset ferry to Port Kent, NY

Bike the Island Line Causeway

ECHO Center on the waterfront

🥾 Walks & outdoors

Church Street to Waterfront Loop (3 km)

🍽 Eat & go out

Walk Church Street end to end

Getting around and when to go

Vermont is a driving state. Interstate 89 runs Burlington to White River Junction (about 1h45), and I-91 hugs the Connecticut River from Brattleboro north to St. Johnsbury. Amtrak helps at the margins: the Vermonter connects Washington and New York to Brattleboro, Montpelier and Burlington (roughly 8h from NYC, $75-$95), and the Ethan Allen Express runs New York to Burlington via Rutland. Burlington International Airport (BTV) is 15 minutes from downtown; car rentals there beat trying to bus around the state.

Time your visit to the season, not the calendar. Foliage peaks in the Northeast Kingdom around September 25, central Vermont October 1-10, and the south a week later. Ski season is reliable at Jay Peak and Stowe from mid-December; Killington often opens in November. Sugaring season (late February through March) is a quieter local pleasure — sugarhouses across Franklin County open for pancake breakfasts. Avoid mud season (early April) unless you like closed dirt roads and shuttered inns.

Cheap hotels in Vermont: how this site works

Hotels-vermont.com is a curated guide to the whole state, not just Burlington. We cover Chittenden County and the Lake Champlain shore, Stowe and the Mount Mansfield area, the Mad River Valley around Waitsfield, Woodstock and the Upper Valley, Killington and Rutland, Manchester and the southern Green Mountains, Brattleboro and the Connecticut River towns, and the Northeast Kingdom around St. Johnsbury and Jay Peak. Each area page explains what a room actually costs, when to go, and which streets or villages to base yourself in.

We are not the booking engine. When you tap See price, we hand you to app.impt.io, which aggregates more than 8 million hotels worldwide and matches or beats the rate you would find on the big OTAs. The difference: every completed booking funds one verified tonne of carbon removal, paid for by IMPT at no extra cost to you. Same room, same price, one tonne of CO₂ removed. That is the entire pitch.