Vermont Foliage Season; Avoid the Crowds - Go Northwest!

A Vermont tourism board social page posted a question recently…”Where is the one place in Vermont that everyone should check out?” I responded “Everyone should NOT check out “one place” that’s the problem that’s creating over tourism! 

I have a theory that some destinations are places where “Everyone goes because everyone goes” Meaning most people visit the same places, simply because everyone else goes there. Not only is that not sustainable for the region, causing places like Venice to enact laws restricting tourists and residents of Barcelona in the streets protesting tourists. It’s not even great for visitors, who face huge crowds and traffic, pay inflated prices and rarely encounter anyone local because locals either avoid the area, or can’t afford to live there anymore and workers get imported from somewhere else to serve the crowds! A recent visit to Bar Harbor Maine, our server was from Bulgaria and there just for the summer. She was lovely, but didn’t give me any extra insight into the community or local culture.

From Elmore State Park Fire Tower, on a clear day, see NH, NY and Vermont peaks!

So as we come to the “peak’ foliage season in New England, I’ll advocate that you can have an incredible experience in more than “one” popular spot and there is no need to fight the crowds to see beautiful foliage and views. If you want to visit an area in Vermont a bit off the beaten path…get out of the Notch and go Northwest!

Itinerary to Visit Northwest Vermont

Get up early and hike in Elmore State Park, climb the fire tower and see foliage for miles.

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Explore acres of art by sculptor David Stromeyer at the Cold Hollow Sculpture park.

Cruise into St Albans and take a stroll along the lake or spend the afternoon shopping at an independent bookstore store or second hand clothing shop and enjoy dinner at a local brewery.

Independent book store, The Eloquent Page often has a “free book” cart out front, and all the latest releases inside.

Check out one of many Vermont micro breweries.

Bring your patience and good will when visiting Vermont this foliage season; many communities are still building back after two historic floods, exactly a year apart- one in 2023 and again this summer. Some roads are still under construction for repair and not all businesses are fully open or have enough help to handle the crowds. Most owner operators of small businesses are doing their best to serve you, so spread your tourist dollars around to quieter, less visited parts of the state and help the community rebuild.

I can’t promise you’ll be all alone touring in Northwest Vermont, but you’ll probably have a calmer, quieter Vermont experience! 

This Spring Glows!!

In January, we stepped foot on our seventh continent (Antarctica…See post here) and we looked around and after that amazing experience we thought…what’s left!? In fact, there’s a lot left…the “book it” list keeps growing as we are intrigued by emails in our inbox and friends’ posts of their trips. “how have we not been to Lisbon?” and “Copenhagen sure looks incredible!” So there’s lots still to see and do!

But this spring, we found a new place to explore, not on any particular continent, we found amazing things to see…IN THE SKY and IN THE WATER and we didn’t have to take a plane anywhere!

Total Eclipse

This April, a spectacular astral event happened all across North America. A relative lives in Vermont, right on the path of totality and we moved in for the weekend, hostel style, with a crowd of other relatives, roommates, friends and a handful of Dartmouth college students. In exchange for a making batches of chili and a ‘make your own taco bar” to share, we scored an actual bed! My back was grateful!

We’d experienced a partial eclipse a few times over our years, but totality is something “totally” different. The unique experience of the moon blotting out the sun for 3 minutes, was fleeting, delightful! The changes to the light, the wildlife around us and the ability to tear off the eclipse glasses and truly see this spectacle was pretty special.

The next total eclipses will require some travel for US viewers who got hooked on the last one! August 12, 2026 over Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. August 2, 2027 over northern Africa, Gibraltar, and the Saudi peninsula. July 22, 2028 over Australia and New Zealand. Below are some tips for planning your eclipse travel.

Eclipse Travel Tips:

• Book any special tours or cruises that will be on the path of totality asap! We tried to get an Air BNB or book a cruise with our favorite adventure cruise line more than a year in advance, and all were already booked.

• If you choose to stay in the “path” , prepare to pay. Hotels in VT we looked into increased prices by 200-400% for the night before the eclipse. Friends who lived within 90 minutes to 2 hours away from the path of totality, who drove to see the eclipse and paid with a 4-7 hour trip home in traffic! So keep your electric car charged and top off your gas tanks!

• Restaurants will likely be overwhelmed by crowds, so pack in your own food and avoid eating out in towns experiencing any special event.

• Choosing to take a longer vacation in the area bracketing the eclipse dates will allow you find more reasonable flights and transportation options.

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Northern Lights

In May, a huge solar storm made the Aurora Borealis visible through much of North America. The typical Aural Oval is in the north, and can most be seen in the winter, and where its dark between latitude 60 and 75 degrees. But in early May, all eyes were on the sky and people as far as south as South Carolina were able to see some “northern lights” Describing this phenomenon is way over my paygrade, but NOAA (click here) does a good job of making it understandable.

Luckily, we had planned an annual family trip to northern Maine to stay off the grid at one of our favorite fishing camps. (See our previous posts here) and it coincided perfectly with this forecasted event. We enjoyed gorgeous sunsets, and then later, assembled in our PJs at nearly midnight, we experienced this solar storm in the sky!

Northern Lights Travel Tips:

• Seeing Northern Lights requires a “perfect storm” of the right kind solar activity (which can’t be predicted much better than weather) and dark nights with no light pollution, and cloudless, clear weather.

• Travel to Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia in winter for the best opportunities. Some tour companies offer glass domed accommodations to facilitate late night viewings.

• That said, we’ve seen Northern Lights unexpectedly twice; once this May (ME) and once in August (AK) and yet friends who have traveled to Iceland or Norway in winter to specifically see them have missed them entirely (as we did during a November trip in northern Canada)

• So my biggest piece of advice is to travel north to see things that interest you…in Iceland go for geologic formations and geothermal baths, travel for cross country skiing and saunas in Finland or go to Canada to see polar bears, and let the northern lights be a delightful surprise that might happen during your trip! Spend more time near the arctic circle and you have a better chance to see this spectacle!

Bioluminescence

What’s “glowing on” in the ocean? Bioluminescent organisms are! Another scientific explanation above my pay grade, but our Maine Guide and operator of Castine Kayak Adventures, Karen, (click here) explained that there are dinoflagellates that when exposed to oxygen will flash, similar to the process in fireflies. Because these colonies of organisms are usually found in sheltered bays, (and move around!) the best way to reach them is by boat, and to use an experienced guide. Usually kayaking puts you right on the water for the best viewing, but some bays allow power boats and guests to jump in to “swim”. We didn’t have the best experience on a kayak tour in Puerto Rico, which was over crowded, so when we learned we could see this phenomenon right in our back yard, we signed up for a tour in late May. Maine has some of the strictest guiding standards in the US, so we felt very safe and our small group tour felt like a magical experience rather than like a fraternity party. I’ve already booked another tour this summer when some guests are here visiting. (photos from both of our bioluminescent kayak tours, one in Farjardo Bay PR and the other in Castine ME)

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Another way to see bioluminescence, without getting into a kayak, is to take a look outside at night when you are on a cruise or boat. As the boat moves through the water, if there are dinoflagellates there, the boats bow wake will activate them making it look like there are sparks in the water!

Do we have any photos of this magical moment? Not from this last trip because very special equipment is required for this kind of night photography. But one of our most special experiences with bioluminescence happened in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico…where one night the dolphins following our expedition ship activated bioluminescence as they frolicked alongside and it created an outline of the animals that we could see in the pitch dark!

Dolphins outlined in bioluminescent organisms they are disturbing while frolicking next to the ship.

Tips to See the Sea Glow:

• Look at the bow wake at night anytime you are on a cruise or boat.

• If you decide to take a kayak tour, choose a good outfitter, kayaking at night requires experienced leaders who can assure your safety first!

• Choose a tour on a date with the “new moon” (which means no moonlight) as the phenomenon is more visible the darker it is outside.

My last tip…wherever you go, look around, look up, look down, go out at night. There are magical things happening on our planet everyday…and as we all learned this spring, sometimes in our own back yards! Adventure doesn’t always require extensive travel, sometimes it only requires opening our eyes and watching what’s happening all around us! Get out there and get “glowing” !

When You Buy A Car and Get a Family Minis Take Vermont Rally

Twenty years ago, we bought a Mini Cooper Convertible. We could just barely fit our two young children, newly liberated from their booster seats, in the back seat, so it was mostly a commuter car, an occasional date night car for when we could escape the kids and the family dog for a few hours. We knew one of the Mini Cooper rules of the road was to always give a friendly wave to another Mini driver, but we had no idea that the car came with a family until we recently joined a Mini Club and attended a Minis Take Vermont Rally. We were able to meet some of the folks who “came standard” with our car and were so glad we did!

The family we didn’t know we had!

We were aware of many Mini Cooper Clubs through out the world, but we hadn’t joined one. Many clubs organize events and rallies for drivers to meet and explore their region. We started searching out clubs and rally events in our area and found Minis Take Vermont, (MTVT) a club with a well organized 5 year old rally event in Vermont. Run by volunteers as a charitable organization, the event roams around Vermont annually basing out of different ski resorts in late fall. We registered for the club and for some of the events and rallies and ordered some merch online and prepared ourselves for the family reunion!

As frequent travelers, we were immediately impressed by the level of organization by the volunteer organizers. All the materials are clear, questions posed to the social media group are answered quickly and we only needed to pack our bags, make a reservation at the host resort, and detail our Mini.

We packed up our warm clothes, some snacks and the two way radios recommended for rallies. I eyeballed the boot of the Mini Cooper and cooler and the pile of luggage we’d planned to take, and gave Hubby a skeptical look. He has a habit of saying in a voice to imitate a petulant toddler “but Mini is a BIG car!” And sure enough, it all ended up in the car and we were soon zipping down the road headed north.

Once we joined the club, before we left for Vermont, we were able to choose online from several rallies and events organized by the club. We were already planning to be in Vermont for the weekend to visit our daughter, so we chose a Thursday event and Friday rally heading north that we could peel off and head further north for the weekend. So we missed some of the events later in the weekend, but we’ve already decided we won’t make the mistake of skipping any again! We had a little FOMO, leaving early, because what we learned is that the whole Mini family is like all “fun aunts and uncles” at the family reunion! We had suspected that there wouldn’t be any jerks in a group of people who drive such a fun car, and we were right! We received a warm welcome from everyone and had a lot of laughs as well as being able to visit some beautiful back roads of Vermont.

A little rain didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm!

The host resort, Jackson Gore Inn, was beautiful, and we took advantage of a group discount to book our comfortable and quiet room. The Ludlow restaurant and golf club, Calcutta’s, was the site of several club events including a welcome dinner, fireside local beer swap (with respect to those who are sober, any beverage can be swapped!!) and farewell dinner with a charity raffle that raised funds for the Okemo Valley Disaster Relief Fund.

We chose Squire Whaleback Rally, which included a stop at the Squire Family Farm and a tasting at the Whaleback Vineyard and a stop for lunch at Birdseye Diner. Each rally goes off in a different direction with a limited number of Minis to minimize local disruptions on the road and make it easier to stay together. With a google rally map, a list of complete addresses for each stop, a rally leader and sweep and a two way radio channel, MTVT made it easy to join as a newbie! Several “photo ops” are included, safe places to pull out and take photos of all the Mini Coopers parked in a scenic area.

On Friday morning before our rally, we enjoyed delicious local donuts and hot coffee while attending a Drivers Meeting, where important rules of the road are emphasized, most especially being respectful of local drivers. This essential kindness and respect came across as a core value of the whole club. From funds raised in relief of this summer’s devastating floods to pulling over to regroup rather than skirting traffic laws or cutting off drivers to supporting the local businesses by stocking up on local goodies, it was clear that this club is made up of a very diverse group of wonderful people whose warm hearts prove they have more than just a car in common!

Vermont goodies from the rally, but the best part was the new friendships we came home with.

Next year’s rally is already in the books…get yourself a Mini Cooper that comes standard with a family! Or if you already have a Mini…come to the reunion!

Photos: J Klofft

Editor: K Klofft