Scenes of Vermont Forums

Everyone: this might be a good time to note some valuable travel material “musts” and “nice to have” for your Vermont excursions. I've put together the following list I have bought/acquired from recommendations on this forum by various posters and I would not be without them. Would love to hear of your own “special” books or guides that you have purchased.

1. Northern Cartographic Vermont Road Atlas and Guide: This is my Vermont bible so to speak. I have no idea how I ever managed without it in my first years of travel in the state. I think because I never got off the main roads! Now I feel more confident and adventurous because this guide gives you incredible detail. One of the negative aspects of it however, is that it is somewhat cumbersome to negotiate between succeeding pages. It did get me out of the proverbial black hole more than once so I still love it!

2. Jimapco Vermont Road Atlas: Another great guide. This is a lot easier to manage and I find that when I am “planning” my routes, albeit main or off road, this is the best one to highlight. It is also a lot easier to go from page to page and significantly more manageable. I would recommend this for a new traveler before you eventually end up getting the Cartographic.

3. Official Vermont Attractions Guide and Road Map from the Vermont State Dept. Of Tourism: I have been using it for years, the same one! It is good to get a global perspective of where you are going and is great to see the northern, central and southern sections at a glance. I have a tendency to keep going and going and not look back and then find I am getting to home port hours later than expected!

4. Covered Bridges of Vermont, Ed Barna, The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, 2003. Excellent book that we read before we get to the bridges! Incredible detail and photos.

5. An Explorer’s Guide Vermont, Christina Tree & Diane E. Foulds, The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, Eleventh Edition, 2006 (newer one may be out). Wow, everything about Vermont rolled into one! I cannot say enough about this magnificent book!

6. Various literature from the individual departments of tourism within the state for the places we visit. I call ahead and get some great detailed maps and brochures that I don’t get from the main department of tourism. For example, from the post I made about the Northeast Kingdom 2008, I have gotten lots of pamphlets and inserts that are only pertinent to the region. They also provide list of local events and church suppers and festivals.

Enjoy! Got the first two while I was in Vermont at country stores or book stores. Number 4 and 5 at local bookstores................

The Delorme Atlas is also very good. I have all 3 atlases in my car. On the official Vermont State Map any road denoted with a solid black line is a paved secondary road. For folks that want to ride on country road but don't want to drive on dirt roads, the paved secondary roads are great.

Good Thread, CT. One of you moderators might even want to consider making this one "sticky"??

I would add my two cents and add the Delorme, VERMONT Atlas and Gazetteer to the list as a valuable aid. It is particularly useful for folks who are trying to find those off the beaten track places, as it has a fair amount of detail by county and also GPS coordinates for those who might find that kind of thing useful.

I'll also put in a shameless plug here, particularly for those photographers among you, for my Photographing Vermont, PDF which can be found on the Travel section of my website http://lightcentricphotography.com/1/13 ... dable-pdf/.

Oh my goodness! How can I forget! This one should have been at the top of the list! Reorganization a must!

1. Scenes of Vermont Forum Posts! And lots of them!

(Thankfully, I have just organized mine from years past into a neat little notebook for upcoming trips!)

Andy: you are right. I should have included your pdf. Apologies. Your pdf is a tremendous asset for photographers and even us leaf peepers! It is a magnificent piece of work!

Everyone: I thought this might be a good time to bring the Maps, Guides and Books for Your VT Excursions post back to life. I could not find my way in parts of Vermont without my Jimapco! I've decided I like it better than the Cartographic now, but both have gotten me out of the "black hole" more than once!

I love the Explorer's Guide as well. And printing out these posts is great for things to do as well as the moderators' directions/suggestions..............

Any other recommendations???

P.S. You'll have to read the post in reverse as this was done in 2008......

Hi All. I have been in the back ground over the last few months reading post after post. Always nice reads and information here.I found this
Northeast Kingdom Interactive Map, which is pretty cool. Take a gander at it. I hope to be at the reunion. Last reunion after arriving more or less I had to turn around because of an emergency.
Take care.

http://www.travelthekingdom.com/nekmap.html

GIC: Wow this interactive map is not only informative but fun! Thanks for adding to the list!

We are all looking forward to meeting you at the reunion this year. I know you were so close to the reunion in 2008 and I'm sorry that you had an emergency.

See you in 5 weeks

I purchased Covered Bridges of Vermont and An Explorer’s Guide to Vermont through Amazon and I am enjoying both books so far. The bridges book is great - I also found on Google Maps that someone created a map of what looks like every covered bridge in New England!

I purchased the 12th edition of An Explorer's Guide to Vermont but during my search I also saw that someone was selling the 1st edition from 1983! I bought that one too just to see what it was like back then (I wasn't born until a year later). Killington lift tickets were $42 for the entire weekend!

Thanks for the suggestions!

ciggwin: Glad you liked those two books. I would highly suggest you get one of the road maps. I go back and forth between the Cartographic and the Jimapco. Today I was highlighting the Jimapco for one of my day trips and ended up with the Cartographic confirming something that was not in the Jimapco! I haven't decided which I like better. I just use them differently.

Welcome to the forum and look forward to more of your posts!

My Jimpaco arrived today!! Thanks to all the wonderful recommendations here, I was able to find one online. It would appear I got their last copy as they no longer carry it. Now to sit down with a pencil and highlighter and put in all the suggestions from SOV!

You guys rock!!!!!

Many convienience stores and grocery stores carry one or more of the Vermont Atlases. When you stop at a "quick stop" store for gas, check the map section.

Here are a few books by a VT native.

http://www.davidmiddletonphoto.com/books1.html

Make sure to scroll down and find these two, which I have used repeatedly:

The Photographer’s Guide to Vermont

The Photographer’s Guide to the Maine Coast

Managed to order a Jimapco Vermont Atlas from Amazon. I think they had three left at the time. Proud to find one!

Warning; on our trip on Friday Ctyanky and I met a couple on route 114 in East Haven that were trying to find West Burke. It seems the map they were given at the car rental agency showed route 114 meeting route 5a in West Burke !! Those roads never meet ! Because they also had a Delorme Atlas I was able to show the a shortcut to route 5a. I recommend to all of you foliage fanatics that you stop at any of our rest areas or welcome centers on the interstate highways and get an official state map. They are free and there are accurate. They also show some of the secondary roads. (Time for a Tim paragraph break)
The solid black lines show the paved country roads and the dashed lines are major gravel roads. These paved country roads are great rides. They have that back road country feel, and because the trees are close to the road, foliage viewing is very good. The only down side is that the road names are not listed.

How much are these to just purchase locally? I'm having a hard time finding any online that are the current edition.