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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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Getting around and when to go
A car is effectively required outside downtown Burlington. Rentals from Burlington International (BTV) start around $55 a day off-peak. The Amtrak Vermonter runs NYC to St. Albans once daily, stopping at Brattleboro, White River Junction, Montpelier and Burlington-Essex Junction; it is scenic and cheap ($75-95 one way from NYC) but slow. Route 100 down the spine of the Greens is the classic drive and takes about 4.5 hours end to end without stops. Winter driving means snow tires and headlamps by 4pm in December.
The rhythm of the year matters more here than in most states. Late May through June is trail season with cheap rooms. July and August are the family and hiking window. Late September to Columbus Day is foliage and the price peak. November is hunting season and quiet. December through March is ski country, with Stowe, Sugarbush, Killington and Jay Peak driving demand. April is mud season, when many country inns close entirely and the ones open sell rooms for half price.
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.