Start from 24 curated places around Middlebury, VT, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
American Flatbread Middlebury
Wood-fired flatbreads made with organic Vermont flour and local toppings, set inside the historic Marble Works district in a building that was once part of Middlebury's granite-processing economy. The communal tables fill with a mix of college students, families, and visiting parents, and the flatbreads come out of the live-fire oven fast. The Revolution flatbread with Vermont maple syrup is the anchor order.
Haymaker Bun Company
A sunlit downtown bakery and cafe that has become the morning institution of Middlebury, with specialty sweet and savory buns that change daily based on what local farms deliver. The coffee program is serious and the space overlooks Otter Creek, making it the best seat in town for a slow morning. Lines form early on weekends and items sell out.
Trails & outdoors
Snake Mountain Trail
The signature hike of the Champlain Valley — a 2.8-mile round trip that gains 650 feet to a bare summit with panoramic views west over Lake Champlain, the Adirondacks, and east to the Green Mountains. The summit was once a grand hotel site, and the old foundations are still visible. It is one of the best-value hikes in Vermont for the effort-to-view ratio.
Rattlesnake Cliffs and Falls of Lana Trail
A Moosalamoo Recreation Area classic combining two of the most dramatic features in the Green Mountains — the Falls of Lana waterfall and the open quartzite ledges of Rattlesnake Cliffs, with views east over Silver Lake and Branbury State Park. The loop is about 4 miles and moderate, with a short steep section to the cliffs.
Things to do
Middlebury College Museum of Art
A free college art museum on the Middlebury campus with a permanent collection spanning ancient Greece to contemporary Vermont artists, housed in a purpose-built 1990s building with serious gallery lighting. The temporary exhibition program brings work from major institutions, and the museum is far better than its small-town college setting might suggest.
Vermont Folklife Center
A documentation center and gallery in downtown Middlebury dedicated to Vermont's folk traditions — music, craft, agriculture, and oral history — with rotating exhibitions drawn from an archive of field recordings, photographs, and objects collected over decades. It is one of the more unusual cultural institutions in Vermont and genuinely illuminates the state's rural character.
Landmarks & sights
Otter Creek Falls (Middlebury Falls)
The dramatic waterfall at the heart of the village where Otter Creek drops through a gorge in the middle of downtown Middlebury, powering the historic mills and providing a spectacular urban-waterfall experience unlike anything else in Vermont. The falls are visible from multiple bridges and overlook points, and the Frog Hollow craft gallery district sits right alongside them.
Middlebury College Campus
One of the most beautiful college campuses in New England, with limestone and marble buildings set on a rolling hill above downtown, surrounded by manicured lawns and views of the Champlain Valley and Adirondacks. The Middlebury College Museum of Art is free and houses a serious permanent collection. The campus is open to visitors.