Do you have a dream destination that you have always wanted to visit??? Our advice GOOOOOO!! Make the plans and just do it!!! If you’ve been following our blog, or if you are new here, you can tell that we love to eat and to travel. One of our bucket destinations was to visit Vermont. We went the end of September 2025 and it was beautiful! We enjoyed exploring the beautiful area and the fall like weather. The daily highs were in the 70’s. We got to wear long sleeves and some days cozy sweaters! It was lovely even the couple of rainy days. We had looked at the forecast before we left so we packed our raincoats so we could venture on.

For about a year Jeff has been researching and planning this trip. We’ve had the time off on the work calendars since January!!

On Sunday morning we arrived at the Birmingham airport to the shortest TSA line EVER and guess what I didn’t get stopped, made it with no issues. We flew through Charlotte, North Carolina and arrived in Burlington, Vermont around lunch. Burlington is a really small airport. We gathered our luggage and picked up our rental car at the airport and off we went. Our first stop was for lunch. We found a spot in Burlington called Bliss Bee. Jeff had a burger and sweet potato fries and I had a harvest grain bowl, it had chicken, dried cranberries, beets, sunflower seeds, shredded carrots, with a cider vinaigrette. After lunch we stopped in a nearby grocery store for water, tea and snacks and then we made the drive to Woodstock, VT, about an hour and a half.

We were able to check in at the Woodstock Inn when we arrived. After we checked in we walked around the area. Everything closes by 5:00 except for the couple of restaurants in the area so we had to do some window shopping. We ended up getting dinner at Coburn’s Tonic. We chose it because 1. they were open, 2. we happened to be walking by, 3. you didn’t need a reservation and 4. they had mac & cheese on the menu. We get seated right away and guess what they are out of mac & cheese. So the waitress had to give us a few minutes for Jeff to make another choice. He ended up having a smash burger and fries and I had a turkey panini and side salad. After dinner we walked by the covered bridge in town on the way back to the Inn.

After we walked back to the inn we stopped at the front desk and grabbed a smores kit and headed out to the fire pit. I just wanted a blackened marshmallow, but we ended up meeting a few people and sat there for awhile. We met a couple from Connecticut, another from Denver, Colorado, two couples from Destin, Florida and a couple from New Jersey. We enjoyed sitting by the fire and talking, totally out of our element. Not normally something we would to.

On Monday we started with breakfast at the Red Rooster which is the on site restaurant at the Woodstock Inn. They had a breakfast bar, the food was all delicious. We then started our day of exploring by walking down the street to the stores that were closed yesterday. As we were walking we found Dreamscapes Coffee so we stopped in and and picked up a couple of there seasonal flavors. I had an apple cider and Jeff had a Golden Milk (steamed milk, turmeric and sweet spices) then we walked down to Pleasant Street. This street is known for the pumpkins sitting on the white fence posts during fall that makes for cute fall backdrops. They were there and so cute.

We then walked to Billings Farm, which was a mostly gradual uphill walk. We arrived at the entrance to the farm and saw a man helping a woman climb on the fence to pick an apple off the tree right beside the sign that said “No Climbing on Fence”. We checked in and started by visiting the gift shop and tasting some of the most delicious cheese of the week. Then we sat in on a butter making demonstration and learned a little history of the farm. After the demo we explored the farm, visited the animals and grabbed a lemonade before we walked back to the inn and to start exploring a little further out of town. We did not see everything at the farm, but we saw what we wanted to.

So we got the car and drove to Sugarbush Farm which is located on Seaver Hill. Some of the roads were gravel and at a couple of points were just 1 lane. We got there and found out that this is a working cheese and maple farm. We got to hear the history of the farm from a granddaughter of the original owner. We got to sample 2 types of cheese and 2 maple syrups, a light and a dark. The color of the syrup comes from the time of harvest. The lighter the color the later it was harvested in the season. Their cheese is still made and wrapped by hand the way it always has been. It is wrapped in foil and coated in wax.

We we went down to the barn and saw where they make the syrup. It is not done like the ancestors did it, as they now have modern machinery. The tree taps now depend more on gravity as they use tubing to run the sap down the hill rather than tapping the tree and hanging a bucket at each tree to collect the sap. The season is late February until early April.

We saw a post with a sign that showed their snowfall totals over the years. They average 35-125 inches of snow.

There were 2 trails in the woods where you could see how they tap the trees. It’s currently just a demo as the season is not until February. We took the short trail, saw how they tap the trees and then we walked over to the chapel in the woods. Along the trail we got to see a woodpecker hard at work on a tree and while we were watching him, a chipmunk sat right behind me watching me. We also saw these fuzzy caterpillars (picture below). We ended up seeing those in several places throughout the week.

We headed back into Woodstock using a different route than the way we went. This route took us across the Taftsville covered bridge. We started looking for a late lunch place. We found that a lot of places are closed on Monday. We ended up going to the White Cottage Snack Bar. We were a little concerned because we were the only ones there, but we were there at an off time. We did end up seeing others come and pick up to go orders and as we were leaving there was another couple arriving. Found out later at the fire pit that the couple from Connecticut also went there around the same time, we just missed them. I had pulled pork and onion rings and Jeff had cheeseburger and fries.

We went back to the inn and was going to try to get a maple creamie from Woodstock Scoops. We found conflicting information on there hours and when we got there they were already closed. So back to the firepit we went. This night the couple from Connecticut were there, and a family from Washington state.

Tuesday ended up being a rainy day. But that is why we packed our raincoats. We started the day walking to Mon Vert Cafe for breakfast. Jeff had the Mooney’s breakfast platter and I had a Florian wrap. After breakfast we walked back to the inn got the car and headed out for the day.

We started by driving to Hanover, New Hampshire to the Dartmouth College campus. It is in a main city area. We drove around and found a parking spot off one of the downtown streets. We visited some of the stores as we explored the area. We stopped in a couple of stores that had the college merchandise. We ended our time there going to Red Kite Candy and had homemade maple caramel swirl ice cream and it was delicious. This was our first maple of the week.

We then headed back to Vermont and stopped in Queechee, Vermont to visit the Queechee Gorge. It was still raining, but it was a really light rain. We stopped in the welcome center and then we started out on the walking path directly behind the welcome center. We got to a point at the edge of the gorge and you have to go right or left. Because of the trees you can’t see the gorge in front of you. Well the path to the right is closed because they are working on the bridge over the gorge. We looked to the left and it was a downward slope that was covered in leaves and everything is wet. We decided that if we went down there we’d have to come back up and with the rain it could be some slippery leaves. Since everything was wet we opted to just go up on the bridge and overlook the gorge. It was a beautiful site with fog settling in.

From there we went to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) nature center. They offered umbrellas to use while there. I took one and then it ended up not really raining while we were there so we were stuck carrying it until we made our way back to the main entrance.

We started with the treetop walk, but we did not go up to the highest point. There were people up there and it was raining and wet so we just stayed on the treetop route. We then went to the bird sanctuary and got a see owls, eagles, hawks and a few other bird that were brought there for various reasons to be rehabbed. Finally saw an eagle up close as all of the ones in Guntersville, AL hid from me on both of our trips there earlier this year. We ended our time there in the songbird aviary. There were cardinals, doves and a few other small birds. While we were there there was a lady leading a tour for all of us that had came in during that time. She told about how they rehab the birds and how they feed them by hand. It was interesting how they have to do it in order for the birds to be able to be released back into the wild so that they aren’t dependent on humans for survival. She said that they do have a few that became too dependent and they will remain with them in the aviary as they would not survive otherwise.

After we were done there we went to Pizza Chef to grab some lunch before heading back to Woodstock. We parked at the hotel and walked to Woodstock Scoops and finally got a maple creamee!! I added the maple sprinkles, had to get the whole experience. They were a little crunchy in the smooth ice cream. They don’t have indoor seating so we ate it as we walked back to our room.

For dinner we made reservations a the Red Rooster on site. We got dressed up and went to dinner. We started with a cheese sampler. It had 4 different cheeses, honey, jam, nuts and crackers. Jeff had a burger and fries and I had chicken with black eye pea succotash. Jeff’s burger was not cooked enough and my meal was not a lot of food. We had heard at the firepit that it wasn’t a lot of food. But we wanted to try it our last night there.

It was too rainy for the fire pit so we didn’t get to tell our new friends from Connecticut bye. So we headed back to our room and got packed up because Wednesday we are moving to a different city.

We’ll cover that in part 2. So long Woodstock its been FUN!!!!