Vermont Trip Recap
I’m not sure that I can overstate how incredible it was seeing Stowe, Vermont in the fall! Visiting Stowe during peak leaf foliage season had been a bucket list trip for me for years, but never seemed to work out. With our house originally scheduled to be finished in mid-October, we didn’t have this trip (or any trips) planned as we prepared to move in. After hearing from our builder of completion getting delayed into December, we both decided that traveling in the fall would help ease the pain a bit! So we booked a VERY last second trip to Stowe and are so happy that we did! It was truly the most breathtaking foliage and fall experience I have ever seen, so I hope you get a chance to check it out one of these years too! If so, here’s a recap about our trip to help you plan your future fall getaway to Stowe, Vermont!
I’ll also be linking all my outfits that I wore during our trip - just click the photo to shop!
DAY 1
As mentioned, this trip was SUPER last second for us. Cort is usually a huge planner when it comes to vacations, so booking a trip like this 3 days before we left was not something we highly recommend. It definitely complicated logistics and made travel more expensive than it should have been...but that was just the situation we were in.
The nearest commercial airport to Stowe is in Burlington, VT, which seemed to be about 45 minutes to an hour away from Stowe. Unfortunately for us, all flights were sold out heading into Burlington since it is a small airport and was last second. Instead, we booked a direct flight from Indy to Boston. We grabbed a rental car at Boston Logan Airport and made the 3-3.5 hour drive up to Stowe. If we go back for a future trip, we will definitely try to book a flight to Burlington, but for this last second trip we actually didn’t mind the drive up from Boston. It was a beautiful drive and mostly on highways until about the last half hour or so. One thing we didn’t fully realize was how early it gets dark in Stowe (even before daylight savings kicks in). Being from Indy, we are used to later days of sunlight...but at this time of year, it seemed to get dark in Stowe by about 6 or 6:15. Take this into account when booking dinner reservations! By the time we got to the hotel, it was already dinner time, and was just about completely dark outside.
We stayed at The Lodge at Spruce Peak, which is a Hyatt property located right off the peak of a mountain in Stowe. The actual area of “downtown” Stowe is about 15 minutes or so from the Lodge, so it feels a little set apart, but the scenery and hotel itself make it worth it. We booked a Ridgeline room, which gives you a view of the mountain range compared to rooms that overlook the hotel property. As you probably saw in my pictures, all the trees along the side of the mountain were in peak bloom and were absolutely breathtaking to wake up to. In my opinion, it was definitely worth paying a little extra for that view. In general, we really enjoyed this hotel and will definitely look to stay there again if we ever make it back to Stowe. The activities available, room quality, and general location amongst nature definitely made it a great trip!
(view from our room)
Given how late we arrived the first day and the fact that we didn’t have a reservation at a restaurant that first night, there weren’t really any dinner options for us that were easy. Therefore, we decided to have a quiet first night, and ordered out from one of the few places that delivered to our hotel, Piecasso. It was great for a lazy evening and let us crash early after a longer day of travel! You can also dine in at Piecasso if you're looking for a place to eat! One big thing to note is that, especially in peak fall foliage season, you HAVE to have reservations for dinner (and maybe lunch) everyday. The restaurant scene in Stowe is fantastic, but there just aren’t enough places to handle all the tourists. Thankfully, Cort found us a few reservations in the couple days before we went out, but I would honestly try to plan out your meals a few weeks in advance if you can.
DAY 2
After an early first night, we woke up pretty early on Sunday morning and left our room at a decent time. After grabbing coffee at our hotel, we wanted to spend most of our day viewing the foliage and driving to some of the popular viewing spots. One thing to mention about visiting Stowe is that (in our opinion) you absolutely need a car to get around. The town itself isn’t huge, but there isn’t a large presence of shared rides, and given the sheer volume of tourists it really made us glad that we had a rental car.
We ended up stopping at the following spots:
This address will take you to a large open field that has a dramatic backdrop of colored trees. There were a ton of people taking photos here, but it’s such a big area that it never felt overly crowded. You can park right along the side of the road and walk out.
Taking Mountain Road north past where we stayed, the road takes you up to the summit of the mountain, where the road gets windy and the foliage lush. There were numerous points the road was covered in a canopy of bright yellow trees, with the mountain cliff peaking through in the background. Once you get to the location, there are a few general parking areas along the side of the street where you can get out, hike around, and see the edge of the cliff face.
After going to the Top of the Notch Boulder, keep going north along Mountain road and you will get to the Smugglers Notch Trail Head. On the left (west) side of the road, there is a large gravel parking lot. We didn’t do any hiking here, but we did stop in the lot and take some breathtaking pictures. Stowe actually sits in a valley between mountains, so it was a little overcast each day in the morning before the fog blew past. This spot is on the other side of the mountain, and had blue skies in the morning when Stowe was cloudy.
We really spent the first half of the day driving around, walking around, and just exploring!
After exploring the foliage, we went into downtown Stowe to walk around, shop, and eat. With a full morning, we decided first to stop by Black Cap Coffee to get more caffeine. Their drink menu was incredible, and I decided to get the Maple Latte (since we were in Vermont!) and it didn’t disappoint. We had initially planned to get lunch elsewhere, but given all the lines at restaurants, we decided to grab food at Black Cap as well. Cort and I both got croissant sandwiches and baked goods, and everything was amazing! If you are looking for a quick, tasty lunch, I highly recommend eating here as well as grabbing coffee! They have a full sandwich menu.
We spent some time walking through downtown Stowe and popped into a few stores to get some merch. We really liked Shaw’s General Store and got a few items from there. If you were watching my stories, this is where we found the mugs we were debating on...which we ended up getting both of! ;)
We spent a few hours back at our hotel relaxing and getting ready for dinner. We booked a 5pm reservation at Edson Hill, which was probably our highlight of the trip. Edson Hill is actually an Inn & Restaurant that sits on it’s own road off the beaten path. We got lucky and happened to book a table on their outside patio, which overlooks their property with a lake, trees, and horses. It is absolutely picturesque at sunset. I highly recommend trying to book a table on the patio in the “front row”. The waiter told us that those tables usually book out a month in advance during busy season. The restaurant was definitely fancier, but not stuffy, and the food was absolutely incredible. Make sure to book a time before sunset, and go early to take pictures around the property if you can! We were in awe of this view!!
Day 3
This was our last full day in Stowe, and we knew we wanted to spend some time hiking and seeing some mountain views. Cort had booked us tickets for the Stowe Gondola Skyride that takes you to the peak of Mt. Mansfield, which can be purchased ahead of time online or on site. Our understanding is that tickets don’t really sell out, so it’s totally up to you on how to purchase! We didn’t realize it at the time, but our hotel actually had a Ski Lift that was actively running during the day and took us directly to the base of Mt. Mansfield where we could then hop on the Gondola ride...which was super convenient because we didn’t have to get in a car. If you aren’t staying at the Lodge at Spruce Peak, you can just park at the Gondola Skyride in their parking lot. The ride took about 5-10 minutes to get to the top, but had incredible views along the way. I highly recommend going only when it is super clear out, otherwise you will lose some of the incredible views that stretch for hundreds of miles. There were some parts of the day that were foggy but we waited it out and got amazing views.
At the top of the lift, there are a few shops and a restaurant. There are also a few hiking trails you can take, which we knew ahead of time we wanted to do. We opted to try the Hike to the Summit, which starts right at the top of the Gondola ride. The hike itself was only about 45 minutes one way, but was surprisingly pretty intense! I’d definitely recommend wearing hiking boots and being ready for a challenge! If you are looking for a casual / beginner hike, I’d recommend walking some of the ski trails at the top, or finding another place to hike in Stowe! But we really enjoyed this one and the views were unbelievable!
We spent a few hours at the top of Mt. Mansfield before taking the Gondola back down to our hotel. We relaxed for a couple hours before heading back out to try a couple breweries and grab an early dinner.
We started out at Von Trapp Brewing Bierhall and sat outside for a drink and some appetizers. Again, you absolutely need to make reservations here, as when we checked in we heard they weren’t taking any walk-ins. This brewery is owned by the same Von Trapp family from the Sound of Music, who emigrated from Austria to Vermont! The brewery is set apart from the town on a beautiful piece of land in the mountains and was super relaxing in the afternoon / early evening... literally Sound of Music vibes. We got some Austrian pretzels and beer cheese to go with our drinks before moving on to our dinner spot.
After countless recommendations from many of you and locals we met in Vermont, we decided to do dinner at Idletyme Brewing. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make a reservation here, so we put our names in earlier in the day and were able to come back for a table on their patio about 2 hours later (definitely get a reservation if you can!). I highly recommend sitting outside on their patio, as it is super relaxing and open. The beer was good, but the food was even better. We were told Idletyme had the best burger in Stowe, and it didn’t disappoint! We will definitely go back here if we make another trip to Stowe and hope to try out more of the menu.
Since Cort and I both have serious sweet tooths, we made sure to save room for some ice cream afterwards and stopped by Red Barn Ice Cream after dinner since it was nearby. I had never heard of this before, but Vermont apparently calls their soft serve ice cream a “creemee”, and the area is known for its maple creemees. Naturally, we each got one and LOVED it. Fair warning, they are super sweet...but that’s exactly what we like!
Day 4
Since Mylo was eagerly waiting for us at home, we decided to catch an early afternoon flight back home. With flying out of Boston, we had to leave in the morning from Stowe and unfortunately didn’t get to try anything else out on our last day...but again really enjoyed the beautiful drive from Vermont back to Boston.
Will I go back??
YES!! Cort and I are already tempted to book another trip back there next year for the fall! We loved our trip, but definitely would have benefited from planning more ahead. I think 3 nights was the perfect amount of time for us, though it would have been nice to have flown through Burlington and had more time on our first and last day. Thank you to all of you who sent recommendations while we were there! We appreciated the help and definitely hope to try out even more places the next time we visit! Hope this was helpful!!
