Ready, Set, Stowe!

When most of us think of Stowe, VT, we picture alpine adventures. (The town is nestled in the foothills of the Green Mountain State’s highest peak, Mount Mansfield, after all.) But increasingly, Stowe is attracting visitors for reasons beyond shooshing down powdery slopes: namely, for its world-class resorts, craft food and drinks, foliage-drenched nature walks and thriving arts scene.

Far be it from us to name the best season to visit Stowe, but we will offer up our personal favorite: fall. The air is crisp but far from frigid, the foliage is popping (it generally reaches ultra-Instagram readiness in late September and early October, if you care about that sort of thing) and the farm-to-table drinks and snacks are reaching peak seasonal perfection. At three-and-a-half hours door to door from Albany, the charming town of Stowe is eminently accessible for a weekend getaway. But before setting your GPS and hitting the road, read on for a complete guide to making the most of your northern Vermont getaway.

Rest & Relax

First up, you’ll need a home base from which you can set forth. The mountainside Topnotch Resort offers city-meets-country vibes with a small footprint (68 rooms plus 20 resort homes), highly personalized service and a raft of amenities that can keep visitors occupied for days. 

The award-winning spa, yoga classes, tennis and pickleball courts, indoor and two outdoor pools (one for adults, one for families), hot tub, firepits, and two farm-to-table restaurants could arrest your attention completely, but the primo location and free shuttle service to the village make getting out de rigueur. 

Topnotch’s worldly but unassuming vibe has earned the resort placement on Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best hotel list. Perhaps more importantly, it has been drawing loyal families year after year who love it as a home away from home—except with better snacks, maid service and amenities. (The concierge will also help you set up dinner reservations and tours). 

Alternative lodging options include the historic Trapp Family Lodge, operated by the von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame (beer fanatics will love the onsite brewery and bierhall restaurant), and Tälta Mountain Lodge, which boasts a range of accommodations plus bike storage, ski lockers and boot-drying rooms.

Stroll & Peep  

Vermont is nicknamed the Green Mountain state for a reason: Of the 9,216 square miles that make up the state, more than 70 percent are forested. There are 808 lakes and ponds, more than 7,000 miles of rivers and streams, 55 state parks and the nation’s first through-hiking trail—the 272-mile Long Trail. In other words, there’s plenty of space to hike, peep and wander.

Accessible right from Topnotch Resort (stroll down the driveway, cross the road and walk past the horses munching on hay) is the paved 5.3-mile Stowe Recreation Path.

The world-famous path, which will take you across 10 bridges spanning the West Branch of the Little River, offer endless mountain views and give you a direct route to downtown Stowe, where restaurants, boutiques, bars, galleries and one of the most photographed churches in the country, the charmingly quaint Stowe Community Church, await.

A beginner-friendly but slightly more nature-centric 1.3-mile walk is the Mill Trail, which meanders parallel to the West Branch of the Waterbury River past several swimming holes, mini waterfalls and gorges up to the Bingham Falls. The wide trail passes by softwood trees, a northern hardwood forest, a historic cabin and the approach to the top of the gorge, which offers a birds-eye view of the thundering 40-foot falls. 

For more of a challenge, check out the Mount Mansfield Chin via Long and Profanity Trail, a rocky, uphill climb with sometimes-slippery and hard-scramble conditions. The trail’s about 4.8 miles long, and will bring you to the summit of Mount Mansfield.  

Drink & Eat

California is the country’s leading craft beer producer, but Vermont has more breweries per capita than any other state (about 15 breweries for every 100,000 residents). Idletyme Tap & Tavern in Stowe offers a range of killer beers that span from the traditional to the offbeat, plus locally sourced pub fare including Vermont cheddar fritters and the Notch Burger with onion jam, roasted jalapeno aioli, fried onions and gruyere. 

The wine scene in Vermont is nascent, but is considered by many to be one of the country’s most fascinating, with the now-iconic Shelburne Vineyard, La Garagista and the ground-breaking Kalche Wine Cooperative snagging headlines across the world. In Stowe itself, stop by Ellison Estate Vineyard’s tasting room (the grapes are grown an hour away in Grand Isle and the wine is made in Stowe). Don’t miss the Bobby Regan, made from the hybrid grapes Marquette, St. Croix and Frontenac Noir, with flavors of red berries, black cherries, smoke and sage. 

At Smugglers’ Notch Distillery, father-son duo Ron and Jeremy Elliott channel the spirit of Vermont’s bootlegging and booze-smuggling history to craft a range of spirits made from carefully sourced ingredients. At the tasting room downtown, try the award-winning vodka made from Idaho-grown sweet corn, winter wheat and Vermont water, or the offbeat and indulgent Vermont Maple Cream Liqueur. While you’re there, pick up a bottle of bourbon barrel–aged Vermont maple syrup.

Aprés Cocktail & Wine is Stowe’s only dedicated cocktail lounge, (try the Nepo Baby Daydream, made with gin, aquavit, Montenegro, honey and lemon), but Cork, a restaurant, wine shop and market, is where it’s at for natural wines and imaginative farm-to-table fare. The store focuses on all-natural, unpretentious wines made by farming families, while the restaurant zeroes in on farm-fresh, scratch-made Vermont food filtered through an Italian lens. (Think roasted carrots with radicchio and honey; pappardelle with tomato sauce, sweet sausage and ricotta; and steak tips with marinated peppers and mesclun greens.) 

If you’d rather have someone else do all of the rigorous work for you, from making reservations to driving, Savor Vermont Tours offers a range of reasonably priced three-hour brewery and wine bar tours in and around Vermont.

See & Shop

You could spend literal days exploring the dozens of boutiques, shops and tasting rooms of downtown Stowe, but we’ll suggest a few can’t-miss stops. First up is the Bryan Fine Art Gallery, which showcases the breadth and depth of New England art with paintings, sculptures, photographs and mixed-media works from established and emerging artists. The space compliments the main gallery in Jeffersonville. 

For more from local makers, check out Remarkable Things at Stowe Craft, where jewelry, furniture, pottery and art are usually on sale. Bookworms will love Bear Pond Books, the second-largest indie bookseller in the state. Spanning 3,700 square feet, Bear Pond offers a vast selection of fiction, nonfiction, children’s lit, New England writing and fantastic gifts. And before you wing it out of town, swing by Commodities Natural Market, where you can pick up all of the locally made snacks and libations you fell in love with in Stowe. 

Sad to be leaving? Take heart! It’s almost ski season. We know you’ll be back for that.