The Road to Vermont: The how and why of getting there.
As I mentioned last week, my wife and I recently took a trip to Burlington Vermont to celebrate our 15th anniversary. There were a number of factors that led to me choosing Burlington as our destination.
When we started talking about getting away, @mrsbozz expressed an interest that she would like to travel "East". Given the fact that we live in the middle of the country, that gives us a pretty good list of options to choose from.
I had a leftover list from Spring Break that included:
- Portland, OR (I know, not East)
- Savanah, GA
- PCH (Pacific Coast Highway also not East)
- Colorado (don't say it)
- Blueridge Parkway
- Austin, TX (South is kind of East right?)
- Manhattan, NY
As I said though, @mrsbozz wanted to head East, so that led me to what are known as the "New England States". I visited these states when I was a kid and I have always wanted to get back that way with my wife to explore them as an adult.
After doing a lot of research online, I eventually narrowed it down to a handful of small towns in Vermont. I basically just Googled "romantic small town destinations in Vermont" and this is what I got:
- Stowe, VT
- Burlington, VT
- Woodstock, VT
- Waterbury, VT
I quickly realized that pretty much every one of those options required that we fly into Burlington as it is the largest city with the largest airport in the area. I figured why not just stay in a bigger town and rent a car so we could enjoy the nightlife but still go out exploring.
Thaks to the magic of credit card rewards points, I was able to get our flight to and from Burlington for "free" as well as our rental car. The only thing that was left to pay for was the hotel room. I decided to splurge a little bit on that, but in the end, I am not sure it was really worth it.
I'm not going to do a full review on the hotel in this post, but I will cover some rough aspects of it.
Based on where we live in the state of Michigan, we have a few options as to where we fly out of. Detroit Wayne is the big airport and pretty much every local flight for us has a connection at DTW. Flint Bishop is about an hour down the road and is a smaller regional airport than Detroit. Finally, a short five or ten minute drive from our house is MBS airport.
We love flying out of MBS, but the cost is usually higher and since everything connects through DTW, you usually end up in Detroit anyway.
To keep our point cost down, we decided to fly out of Detroit. We left our house around 11 AM to make the two hour drive down to DTW. We weren't sure what traffic was going to be like so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time for the 2:40 departure time.
Likewise, we didn't know what security was going to be like at DTW.
Traffic on 275 outside of Detroit was pretty bad and the weather was quite crumby when we left the airport. The line through security was long, but it honestly wasn't too bad.
I wrote a little bit the other day about how we almost waited too long at the wrong gate, but ultimately we made it onto the plane with little issue.
Promptly at 2:40 we were taxiing out on the runway and we were in the air. It was a direct hour and a half flight from Detroit to Burlington and we had zero issues with turbulence or weather during our flight.
We actually arrived in Burlington a little ahead of schedule around 4:00 and after a brief delay after I stood at the wrong rental car counter for 15 minutes, we were on our way to the hotel. About a year ago I got a free Tile as a gift from a conference that I attended. It turned out we didn't need it in our checked bag as that arrived without issue. It was nice to have it there just for peace of mind.
This was our ride for the five days that we were in Vermont. They said the Nissan Rogue was a little bit of an upgrade from the vehicle that I had originally booked via Avis. In the past I would have used Enterprise, but after a couple of bad experiences and reading about @ericvancewalton's recent issues with Enterprise, I decided to try Avis.
It was free after all thanks to my credit card points remember. I was actually really happy with the service and vehicle I got from Avis. I'd use them again in the future for sure.
I had a bit of an issue getting out of the parking garage with the Rogue. It had a shifter that I wasn't familiar with and somehow I put it in manual mode. I had to use the paddle shifters to change gears, but I managed.
Traffic to our hotel from the Airport was pretty thick, but Burlington isn't a huge town, so it didn't take us more than 20 minutes to get from point a to point b.
We stayed at the Hilton Lake Champlain Burlington. As I mentioned, I splurged a little on the hotel since the flight and car were covered. I got us a corner room with a lakeside view and the grand total was $3000 USD total for the five nights.
Looking back now, that was probably way more than I should have spent and given the weather the lakeview didn't end up being everything it could have been. It is what it is though and I can't really change it now.
There are a few other things that left me a little apprehensive about how much I paid for the hotel, but as I said, I will cover that in a different post.
Checked in and settled in our top floor hotel room, @mrsbozz and I decided to go out exploring and get some dinner.
Keep an eye on my blog to find out where we ended up!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
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Glad you came to visit! We moved from crowded Colorado to the nice quiet small town feel of Vermont 2 years ago and love it here. We still haven't gotten out that much to touristy stuff. Looking forward to seeing your other pics. Hope you were able to still catch the leaf peeping!
We did a little bit of peeping even though that wasn't our main reason for going. It rained a lot of the time we were there, so that made things difficult and we were maybe a little too late in the season. We plan on heading to Colorado next summer. I have a ton more pictures of Vermont to share yet though.
Ha, too funny, you're hitting all my stomping grounds. We just moved here to Vermont 2 years ago from Colorado. Be sure to hit Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs (my personal favorite). There's also a 7 waterfalls area nearby. "The stairs" near Manitou springs is popular for hiking up the long set of stairs up the mountain. Pike's Peak is also a nice drive to the summit. And Estes Park in the fall if you want to see Elk really, really, up close and personal.
We've only just started exploring here in Vermont. Enjoy your trips and looking forward to your other pics to give us some ideas!
I've been to Estes Park before. I will keep the others in mind. We are going to be there for a big softball tournament, so I am not sure how much time we will have to explore. If you are close, I suggest you check out Mt. Philo State Park. It was kind of cool.
Credit card points are really an amazing thing. Wish the airlines wouldn't keep slashing them. I put all my points towards flights, but that still barely makes a dent in the international flight price tag. Oh well, any is better than none, eh?
You had a nice view from your hotel! I don't know know, I guess my standards are low, cause that looks fantastic to me. Then again, I wasn't the one paying 3 grand for that view so it's easier for me to say ;)
Part of the problem was the fact that it rained a lot of the time we were there, so although we got one or two nice sunsets like that, for the most part it was just fog and clouds. Yeah, my new credit card stopped doing points. They have moved to a cash back program. Which is fine. I don't really care either way.
I can see that. And I can relate to it! For our honeymoon, we stayed at a fairly expensive place with a view overlooking the ocean. Yet the entire week we were there, it rained. The view was still nice, but not as nice as I had hoped.
On the good side, the hotel had a great public bath area with hot water pumped in from a hotspring. That was pure heaven. Well, honestly, it's the same as any hot spring that I've been to in Japan, but that doesn't make it any less nice.
That is cool about the spring. I am glad you got to enjoy that. I still regret a bit that my wife and I didn't get a honeymoon, but we have been making up for it by doing other traveling through the years.
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3 grand for 5 nights is very expensive!!! But then,I'm a stingy traveller. Got to say it's a very nice view and I hope the service matched the price you paid. Look forward to ready the rest of your travels
Yeah, looking back I realize that now. Especially given the room and some other factors that I will cover in a later post. I guess you live and you learn though. I don't know if we could have gotten that view anywhere else.
Way to go getting those flights and rental car with points! Vermont looks wonderful. FB Memories reminded me that my wife and I were just in Portland, ME this time last year and VT looks almost identical. Enjoy your time there and travel safe, it's a beautiful part of the country!
Thanks, I think you would really like it there. Lots of different food places to check out. I will cover this in a later post, but we actually kind of got tired of eating by the end of the trip! I'm actually a bit happy we weren't in ME given everything that just happened. You can't seem to get away from that anywhere these days though.
I think we would like it too. It seems quaint in all the same ways that Maine was. We begin to crave home cooked food after about a week of travel.
I know, it's scary, and it can literally happen anywhere. We used to be apprehensive about traveling certain places overseas now we have to worry more about the violence here in our own country. Very sad.
Yes, very sad! We feel the same way, I think we had salads for three days straight after we got back!
You guys got a good ride for that five days
I love couples who travel and enjoy together
I've heard Vermont is a lovely place and at this time of year with the fall colours, the leaves and all, I think it would be a nice place to be. I think I'd have to find a cheaper hotel room though...but that might come with a view of a brick wall.
Becca 🌷
Yeah, you can't really beat the view. Nicer weather would have been cool. The colors weren't as bright as usual this year because of the hard spring or something like that.
When I get my brick wall view room I'll let you know what it's like. 🙃
Becca 🌷
Thanks!
Nothing beats having a good time with the love of your life, I wish you a happy wedding anniversary.
Thank you!
Free airfare and rental car is awesome. The view from the pictures looks really nice as well. It's a shame it rained a lot, and you seemed to have some issues making the room not worth it. I hope you were able to enjoy the trip though.
We did have a good time thanks. It was refreshing for our souls.
De verdad es una felicidad , puntos de tarjeta de crédito, un sueño para nosotros los venezolanos.
Sounds like it must have been a nice room for that price tag! But the flight and rental car were free so why not?
On the rental car front I don't use enterprise anymore, I just had too many problems with them. I tend to stick with Hertz or Avis anymore. Paddle shifter must have been interesting, never tried those before!
I've had them on my last two cars, but I don't really use them that much. It's all pretty confusing to me. My wife knows how to drive a stick, so for a hot second I thought about pulling over and letting her drive! The hotel wasn't flawless, but on the good days, the view was magnificent.