Vermont
2024's 7 Most Adorable Small Towns in Vermont
Vermont, one of the New England states, is small both in population (49th of 50) and land area (45th). Yet the “Green Mountain State” packs plenty of natural beauty and small-town charm into a small package! Without any big cities, Vermont truly is a place defined by its small towns, which are full of history and populated by welcoming and proud locals. Among Vermont’s dozens of postcard-pretty small towns, check out our list of seven of the most adorable.
Brattleboro
Brattleboro is a popular day-trip destination for visitors from Vermont as well as New Hampshire, which is just across the Connecticut River, and Massachusetts, which is only a few miles away. This community of 12,000 has a classic downtown area, lined with red-brick buildings housing a nice range of shops and eateries. Your walking tour also has to include Brattleboro’s Municipal Center, housed in the Gothic-style former high school. Visit in summer to enjoy great kayaking on the river, or come in wintertime to hit the ski slopes on nearby Mount Snow. If you enjoy quirky musical instrument museums, check out the Estey Organ Museum.
Grafton
From its spot in the Green Mountains, Grafton has been an important stagecoach stop, a soapstone mining center, and a home to textile mills along the Saxtons River. Several historic buildings, most notably the 1801 Grafton Inn, have witnessed Grafton’s past and now serve its present as a tourist destination. This town of only 600 also has two great museums, the Grafton Historical Society Museum, and the Grafton Nature Museum. Be sure to take a photo at the classic McWilliam Covered Bridge, then sample the wares of the nearby Grafton Village Cheese Company.
Manchester
Manchester has become a popular regional shopping destination because of the Manchester Designer Outlets, but you will enjoy visiting the town even if you are not looking for name-brand deals. The downtown area offers local boutique shopping and three historic districts, and Manchester’s architectural highlights include the 1905 Hildene House, a luxurious former summer home with fantastic gardens. If you prefer a bigger challenge than a garden stroll, try hiking the trails up Mount Equinox to enjoy stunning views of the Green Mountains to the East and the Taconic Mountains to the West.
Montpelier
Autumn skyline of Montpelier, Vermont, USA.
Montpelier, with only about 8,000 residents, is the smallest state capital in the nation, giving it a unique combination of small-town charm and capital-city amenities. The Vermont State House, Vermont History Museum, and other state-affiliated institutions give visitors plenty to explore, yet you can also enjoy a quiet stroll down Montpelier’s quaint State Street business corridor. Surprisingly enough, though, many locals think the best walking spot in Montpelier is Green Mount Cemetery, which pairs ornate funerary architecture with lush rolling hills. The Winooski River, which unfortunately causes occasional flooding issues, also offers opportunities for boating and kayaking.
Shelburne
The historic farm barn is surrounded by fall foliage at Shelburne Farms, Vermont.
The town of Shelburne might occupy the ideal location in Vermont—alongside Lake Champlain, fewer than ten miles from Burlington, and within sight of the Adirondack Mountains to the west and the Green Mountains to the east. No matter the time of year, but most especially when the fall colors are at their peak, Shelburne is perfect for a nature walk along the glistening lakeshore. Shelburne also has a nice collection of visitor attractions, including the Shelburne Museum (home to the steamboat SS Ticonderoga), the Vermont Teddy Bear Company factory, and Shelburne Farms (a sustainable agriculture educational nonprofit).
Stowe
Panoramic aerial view of the town of Stowe, Vermont, during the fall season.
Skiers know Stowe, home to Stowe Mountain Resort, as one of the premier ski spots in the eastern United States. Meanwhile, lovers of classic films may recognize Stowe as home to the Trapp Family Lodge, founded by the singing von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame in the 1940s. Artists also have an affection for Stowe, which is a haven for painters and home to renowned galleries like the Helen Day Art Center and Northwood Gallery. And, if you still have not found a reason to visit, Stowe has a picture-perfect New England downtown and is considered one of the best fall foliage viewing areas in the region!
Woodstock
Early autumn foliage scene featuring houses in the mountains of Woodstock, Vermont.
In the era before electricity, the town of Woodstock grew wealthy by harnessing the flow of the Ottauquechee River to power numerous wool and textile mills. While the mills have long since shuttered, several of the finest homes from that era were preserved, with some now serving as charming bed-and-breakfasts. Woodstock still looks and feels like a classic New England town, with a covered bridge, a weekly farmer’s market, and a “town crier” message board in the heart of downtown. This town of 3,000 also hosts several fun community events, including the annual Harvest Weekend in October and Wassail Weekend each December.
Plan Your Vermont Adventure Today!
Vermonters are overwhelmingly proud of their unique little state, including its many classic small towns. While famous for their independent spirit, nearly all the residents of these communities are also extremely welcoming to visitors who want to experience small-town life in the Green Mountain State. So do not delay in making your 2024 Vermont travel plans—no matter the time of year, you will have a fantastic experience exploring its adorable small towns!
Arnaldo Gregorio Alay Aguilar was following his navigation system while delivering a truckload of logs to New York and ended up at Vermont’s Highgate Springs border crossing into Canada.
Canadian officers would not let him back up the truck for safety reasons, his lawyers say. So he was forced to cross through, make a U-turn and report to a border official on the U.S. side.
That detour led to the 40-year-old trucker being held in federal custody for three weeks. But the government did not make a case for why, according to court documents.
The situation has similarities to a pattern that emerged in recent immigration operations in Burlington and South Burlington, where government lawyers failed to provide evidence when seeking to hold people picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford ordered Alay Aguilar’s immediate release last week “given the nature of the constitutional violations in this case,” according to the court order.
Federal officials “failed to provide Petitioner with a charging document or to articulate a clear or legally sufficient basis for his detention,” his lawyers stated in court filings.
In his order, Crawford noted that the government had offered no justification except a reinterpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act as it applies to people who originally entered the U.S. without authorization and have been living in the country. Alay Aguilar has a pending asylum application from October 2025.
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Federal lawyers argued that a person in his situation is subject to mandatory detention and not entitled to a bond hearing, at which an immigration judge would consider whether the person is a flight risk or a danger to the community.
That reinterpretation, Crawford determined, was wrong.
Amid the Trump administration’s continued crackdown on immigration, federal judges in Vermont this year have issued a string of rebukes to ICE for violating people’s constitutional rights while detaining them.
Nathan Virag, one of the lawyers who represented Alay Aguilar in federal court in Burlington, said the government had no grounds for holding his client.
“This is a person who did not try to leave the United States. It was an inadvertent reroute that should not count as a departure from the United States,” Virag told VTDigger. Virag is a lawyer with the Association of Africans Living in Vermont.
Co-counsel Erin Jacobsen, a lawyer with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, said the hearing March 25 was brief and featured “very little argument by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Spokespeople for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions via email about the case.
Alay Aguilar’s description of what happened when he reached the Canadian border March 5 is contained in the habeas corpus petition filed in U.S. District Court on March 23, the federal response filed March 24 and the judge’s order filed March 25.
A citizen of Ecuador, Alay Aguilar lives in North Carolina and had applied for asylum in October 2025, according to court filings. That case is pending.
A long-haul truck driver with a valid commercial driver’s license, he recently took up an extra gig — to haul timber from Vermont to New York — to pay for an immigration lawyer for an upcoming asylum-related hearing, according to his lawyers’ petition.
Alay Aguilar inadvertently crossed into Canada at Highgate Springs, one of the busiest border crossings in New England, while following directions on the truck’s navigation system, the petition said.
Canadian border personnel, who communicated with Alay Aguilar in Spanish, would not let him reverse the truck for safety reasons.
When Alay Aguilar tried to reenter the U.S., a Customs and Border Protection official gestured for him to exit the truck and walk into a building, which he did.
In the building, Alay Aguilar was allowed to communicate using Google translator on his phone. Officials said there was a problem with the truck’s manifest and ordered him to call the owner, which he did. CBP officials then spoke with the owner in English and did not translate the conversation, court documents state.
Officials then confiscated his phone and handed it to an ICE official. ICE personnel then handcuffed Alay Aguilar and drove him to an office about 15 minutes away where he was detained for about three hours, according to court documents, before being moved to Northwest State Correctional Facility and held there.
Court filings indicate Alay Aguilar fled Ecuador and entered the United States around November 2023. He was detained by the Department of Homeland Security near the Mexican border and held for a few weeks, after which he accepted the government’s offer to fly him to New York so he could pursue asylum outside of detention, his lawyers said in their petition.
He relocated to Charlotte, N.C., and applied for asylum. He received work authorization and is currently employed by a local company in North Carolina. He has lived and worked in North Carolina for two years, where he has friends and a serious girlfriend, his lawyers said in court documents.
“There were no changed circumstances after his release on his own recognizance in 2023, no criminal history, so it really was an unconstitutional detention,” Virag said in an interview.
Cases arising out of accidental border crossings are based on Homeland Security officials “misinterpreting” decades-old rules meant to punish people making an initial entry into the United States or those who are a danger to the community and pose a flight risk, Virag said. Judge Crawford noted in his order that Alay Aguilar had not been found to present a danger or a flight risk.
“These detentions serve no legitimate government purpose or interest,” Virag said.
Similar border crossing detentions last year — involving Alexi and his family and Jose Ignacio “Nacho” De La Cruz and his stepdaughter, for instance — illustrate some of the tactics CBP have used on noncitizens amid detention quotas mandated by the Trump administration.
As for Alay Aguilar, his detention was one of “fear, confusion, isolation, and hopelessness,” his lawyers said in court filings.
“This case had a good outcome, but Mr. Alay Aguilar was subjected to 20 days of detention with absolutely no due process whatsoever — a completely unjustified, inexcusable, traumatizing abuse of power,” Jacobsen said.
“In many ways, Arnaldo’s case was like the other unconstitutional detentions we’ve seen, with our government arresting and detaining people outside of regular and constitutionally required procedures,” she added.
And his lawyers would not have known about his case were it not for the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project’s detention check program, she said. Under that program, lawyers and interpreters proactively visit the detention centers in Vermont. Alay Aguilar was found at the St. Albans prison during one such visit on March 18, she said.
Now that Alay Aguilar has been freed, he is back in North Carolina.
“He will be able to resume what he was doing before his apprehension — working, taking care of his family and continuing to pursue his asylum case,” Jacobsen said.
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The open house for a new medical office in Williston looked ordinary enough.
On a recent Friday evening, a smattering of prospective patients grazed on fruit and healthy snacks, peeked at the exam room, and chatted with the owner and staff members of Blue Spruce Health.
But the flyer announcing the event contained clues that this wasn’t your typical doctor’s office. It’s one of a growing number of practices in Vermont that deliver medical care through a relatively new model known as direct primary care.
Though similar in concept to a more commonly known version called “concierge medicine,” direct primary care touts cheaper care — fees typically top out at $200 a month — allowing doctors to see patients who are from a range of income levels rather than just high earners. It’s sometimes referred to as “blue-collar concierge.”
Darren Perron spoke with Seven Days’ Alison Novak, who reported on the new health care model in this week’s edition.
Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.
Vermont’s barn preservation effort is getting a fresh coat of energy as the state opens applications for the 2026 Vermont Barn Painting Project.
The initiative offers reimbursement to farm families for painting and minor repairs that help maintain historic barns, according to a community announcement. Funding comes from the A. Pizzagalli Family Farm Fund, and ten barns will be selected for support this year.
The announcement notes that the program continues a long-running effort supported by Angelo Pizzagalli and the family fund. The fund has been involved in barn restoration work for years, evolving into the microgrant format now being used to help farm families manage the upkeep of large, aging structures.
Applications are open through April 30 and will be reviewed as they arrive, according to the announcement. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.
Interested barn owners may apply online or email Scott Waterman at Scott.Waterman@vermont.gov for more information.
This story was created by Dave DeMille, ddemille@gannett.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.
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