Middlebury, Vermont

SINK Focus
2 yr
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Middlebury locals? What's it like to live there?

Vermont is the 2nd least populated state. It is very very family oriented and there are many hermits. Middlebury is a very quiet college town. There is more diversity in the college community but in general Vermont is not diverse and very sheltered and they appear to conflicted on the need to change and adjust.
I moved here about a year ago. I’m not planning on leaving but I’m a little surprised by somethings I’ve experienced here.
There are restaurants but in all honesty the food is about a 2 on the scale of 1-10. It’s very very flavorless and expensive in general. Learn to cook bc the farmer’s market are incredible. Bring lots of hobbies and extra money.
I’m over 20 years older than you but I can tell you from my perspective it has been very difficult to meet people here. Do visit. The summers are incredible but it’s a few short months. There are also many tourists. Get snow tires. Learn to ski. Google Snl Vermont skit. It’s funny bc it’s oddly accurate.

Family Focus:
2yr ago
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Redditors that moved to Vermont after posting here, how did it go?

Upper Valley
We moved with our family from GA in Sept after 14 years in ATL. Never visited VT before, but I had spent several winters in MN so the cold was neither unexpected nor intimidating. On the whole, it's been a fabulous decision.

We ended up buying 20ac in the Upper Valley with a house and barn to expand our farm for not much more than we sold our 0.2ac suburban lot in ATL for. We have high speed internet with EC Fiber to come sometime this year or next.

Hard bits

Honestly, the hardest part of the whole move was the buying process for our home and getting used to this 200+ yo farmhouse and its personality. Closing took over 2 months whereas we're used to 30 days. There was a last minute hiccup with the appraisal coming in quite a bit below the contract price so we had more negotiations and were weeks from being homeless in the winter (airbnb running out). All this with 2 young kids, 2 old dogs and an old cat! But we made it with days to spare.

Nothing else has been hard really, more of a learning curve. Like we had our pellet stove stop working in the first couple of weeks and had to figure out how to fix it ourselves. Ended up replacing it with a Harman later in the winter (AAA decision).

Availability of childcare was tough initially during our 3 mo airbnb stay in the MRV— no options. Once we bought our place, we still had to wait to get both kids started in the local daycare.

Eating out— we knew this would be a big change from the quality of food we were used to, and not having the option of picking up a variety of cuisines has been a little annoying.

Not-so-hard bits

The community has been amazingly welcoming to us flatlanders. Plus I'm a brown male and I've not felt one iota of discomfort. They're super excited to hear about our plans (farm + restaurant) and can't wait for us to get going. The kids are in daycare which has been an amazing blessing after almost a year of being stuck at home.

The winter has been gorgeous. The right clothes and attitudes make all the difference. Winter tires on a Forester means no issues getting around. Next winter will be even better as we get more gear (start skiing, get some snowshoes, maybe a snowmobile??!) and weatherize and insulate this old house. The pellet stove going non-stop in the kitchen and a fire in the fireplace most evenings is cozy as heck.

The first week we moved in, we got hit by that nor'easter that dumped 40" of snow on us in a day. A kindly neighbor we had never met just drove up in his tractor and dug us out, probably having watched us all day shoveling our car out. He continues to come each time it snows and clears our driveway and won't take anything in return to say thanks. Is this what y'all meant by Vermonters aren't too welcoming of outsiders?! And he is a Vermonter, lovely genuine person, him and his wife.

Other neighbors (native Vermonters and transplants) have also been welcoming and some have stopped and introduced themselves.

It really does feel like there's so much more a sense of community and place here.

High-speed internet (Xfinity right now, EC Fiber later) was a key must-have since I work remotely and a major reason we looked hard at the Upper Valley. No issues so far.

There's decent elementary school choice here, which we were not expecting. We're going to be sending our kindergartener to a local school that spends a lot of time outdoors in all seasons. Something we had wanted but had no idea was available till well after we moved in.

We're 2 hrs from BOS, and we foresee several trips when things open back up. We're rural enough to have so much freedom and space and be somewhere so liberal, I still can't believe we get to live here.

flambeaway
2y ago
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Middlebury is not a small town by Vermont standards. It's got 3 grocery stores, a decent handful of restaurants, some bougie shop(pe)s, a college, a McDonald's, and a UPS store.

Long commutes are for suckers. You go to work every day, you go to wherever else once in a while. Living in Middlebury sounds much nicer than living in Burlington anyway (I've spent a bit of time in both places, but lived in neither).

If you're set in living between the two I think the largest towns between them are Vergennes and Shelburne but I'm not an expert on the area.

Young Professional/College Focus

Middlebury Vermont [What it's like to live in Middlebury 2022]

Considering moving to Middlebury Vermont or going to Middlebury College? In this video I'm going to show you what Middlebury Vermont is really like. Starting with the history and covering things to do in Middlebury, best places to visit, and information about both visiting and living there.