Back roads, covered bridges and inns worth the drive, timed north to south as the color moves.
By the Global Escapes travel team · Updated
Vermont doesn’t turn all at once. The color starts in the far north and up high, then rolls south and down into the valleys over three or four weeks.
The Northeast Kingdom usually peaks first, from mid to late September. The higher towns of central Vermont, around Stowe and the Mad River Valley, follow from late September into early October. The Champlain Valley and the southern valleys around Woodstock and Manchester come last, in early to mid-October.
That gives you a wonderful option: start in the north and drive south with the peak. Every year shifts a little with rain and cool nights, so we keep an eye on Vermont’s weekly fall foliage report as your trip gets close, and fine-tune the order of your stops.
The best foliage drives are slow ones. These are the stretches we’d build a day around, with time for farm stands and cider along the way.
Big skies, dairy farms and white steeples. Lake Willoughby sits between two cliffs like a Norwegian fjord, and the hilltop village of Peacham is one of the most photographed in New England.
Route 108 squeezes between boulders and cliffs on its way over the mountains from Stowe. It’s narrow and twisting, so take it slowly, and plan on it in fall only, since the road through the notch closes for winter.
Route 100 runs down the spine of the Green Mountains. In Waitsfield and Warren, detour up and over the mountain gaps for long views back across the valley.
A village green, covered bridges and the deep gorge at Quechee, all along Route 4. Billings Farm and the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park make a lovely slow afternoon.
Marble sidewalks, bookshops and the Skyline Drive to the summit of Mount Equinox, where on a clear day the color seems to go on forever.
A red covered bridge over a trout river, beside the green where Norman Rockwell once lived and painted. It’s an easy, gentle detour from Manchester.
Vermont has about a hundred covered bridges, and the best of them sit right where you’ll already be driving.
The Woodstock area has four along the Ottauquechee River. The Taftsville bridge, built in 1836 and 189 feet long, is one of the oldest in the country. Woodstock’s Middle Bridge, within sight of the village green, was built in 1969 with wooden pegs instead of nails, in the old way.
Up north, Stowe’s Gold Brook bridge, known to everyone as Emily’s Bridge, comes with a ghost story the locals love to tell. In Waitsfield, the Great Eddy bridge still carries traffic across the Mad River right in the village.
A fireplace, a long dinner and a good bed at the end of a day of back roads. Split your nights between two or three of these and you’ll follow the color without long drives.
The Austrian-style lodge of the von Trapp family, high on a hillside above Stowe, with walking trails, a bierhall and sweeping mountain views.
A small country inn on a quiet hillside above Stowe, with a cozy dining room and fields that glow in the late afternoon.
An intimate inn beside a stream in the village of Warren, with individually designed rooms and a serious wine cellar.
An all-inclusive hideaway of cottages and fireside rooms on a private estate in the hills of Barnard, a short drive from Woodstock.
The grand inn on the village green, with a spa, golf and the whole village at your door.
A historic white-columned resort in Manchester Village, below Mount Equinox, with a spa and golf.
The small things that make a foliage trip feel unhurried.
Vermont inns for the first two weeks of October often book six to twelve months ahead. We hold good rooms early and fine-tune as the forecast firms up.
The October holiday weekend is the busiest of the season. Arriving on a Sunday or Monday gives you quieter roads and easier dinner tables.
Two or three hours of driving a day is plenty. The stops are the point: cider mills, cheese makers, sugarhouses and general stores.
Color looks brightest in low, golden light. Plan scenic drives for mornings and late afternoons, and save midday for lunch and wandering.
The best restaurants in small towns have only a few tables. We book them when we book your inns.
Mornings can be near freezing, afternoons mild. Bring layers, a warm jacket and shoes for muddy trails.
Planning the whole trip?
Add New Hampshire’s White Mountains or the Maine coast. Month-by-month weather, a route map and the places our travelers love most, from Boston to Acadia.
See the New England guideTell us when you’re thinking of going and who’s coming along. An advisor will take it from there.