Vermont is also commonly called 'The Green Mountain State'. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain gave the name "vert mont" meaning "green mountain" to indicate Vermont's Green Mountains on his 1647 map.

Vermont is known for its sugar maple syrup and its excellent cross-country ski resortslike Stowe, Killington, Stratton Jay and Okemo. The rural northeastern portion is called "Northeast Kingdom," known for exceptionally cold winters. Interestingly enough, Rudyard Kipling, living in Vermont in the 1890's invented the game of snow golf. The Catamount Trail is 300 miles of endless ski trail that allows one to ski the span of the entire state.

At 9,250 square miles, Vermont is one of the smaller U.S. States. Also the second least populated of the fifty states with only around 610,000 Vermonters. But crowd-drawing festivals are a-plenty including 'Vermont Maple Festival', the 'Enosburg Falls Dairy Festival', the 'Marlboro Music Festival', and the 'Mozart Festival'.

When in Vermont, you must have a liquor ID in order to purchase alcohol at liquor stores and grocery stores. It can weigh you down when traveling through the state, so an obligatory stop at a Vermont bar will quench the craving.

Often, first-timers in Vermont note how familiar some of its scenic spots are. Vermont is a favorite location site for Hollywood movies. The roads around Reading and Woodstock in "Forrest Gump" (1993), the Burlington Waterfront area in "Me, Myself and Irene" (2000), and the apple orchards in "The Cider House Rules" (1998) are all Vermont sceneries.

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