Southern Vermont: Places to Explore

Smaller than Bennington and more down to earth than upper-crust Manchester to the north, Arlington exudes a certain Rockwellian folksiness, and it should. Illustrator Norman Rockwell lived here from 1939... Read more

Bennington is the commercial focus of Vermont's southwest corner. It's really three towns in one: Downtown Bennington, Old Bennington, and North Bennington. Downtown Bennington has retained much of the... Read more

Brattleboro has drawn political activists and earnest counterculturists since the 1960s. Today, the city of 12,000 is still politically and culturally active, making it Vermont's hippest outside of Burlington... Read more

At the junction of Routes 11 and 103, Chester is the town that time forgot. Gingerbread Victorians line the town green, the pharmacy on Main Street has been in continuous operation since the 1860s, and... Read more

Lying at the foot of many mountains and with a village green surrounded by white clapboard homes and inns, Dorset has a solid claim to the title of Vermont's most picture-perfect town. The town has just... Read more

Out-of-the-way Grafton is as much a historical museum as a town. During its heyday, citizens grazed some 10,000 sheep and spun their wool into sturdy yarn for locally woven fabric. When the market for... Read more

Ludlow was once a nondescript factory town that just happened to have a small ski area—Okemo. Today, that ski area is one of Vermont's largest and most popular resorts, and downtown Ludlow is a collection... Read more

Well-to-do Manchester has been a popular summer retreat since the mid-19th century, when city dwellers traveled north to take in the cool clean air at the foot of 3,816-foot Mt. Equinox. Manchester Village's... Read more

Stratton is really Stratton Mountain Resort—a mountaintop ski resort with a self-contained "town center" of shops, restaurants, and lodgings clustered at the base of the slopes. When the snow melts... Read more

One of a string of attractive villages along the banks of the West River, Townshend embodies the Vermont ideal of a lovely town green presided over by a gracefully proportioned church spire. The spire... Read more

Best known for the Vermont Country Store, Weston was one of the first Vermont towns to discover its own intrinsic loveliness—and marketability. With its summer theater, classic town green with a... Read more

The village of Wilmington, with its classic Main Street lined with 18th- and 19th-century buildings, anchors the Mount Snow Valley. Most of the valley's lodging and dining establishments, however, line... Read more