Our "big" festivals are tiny compared to most places. Oxbow Music Festival in Morrisville is one of my favorites (in August, a few hundred people attend usually). Rattling Brook Bluegrass Festival in Belvidere is a hidden gem.

I believe there's still some minor construction happening in the Hardwick area, but it has been open as a snowmobile trail this winter. I think they might just still be putting down the final surfacing in spots.

I drive through that area a few times a year (visiting friends nearby) and that's pretty hard to believe. I've been all over backroads in that area and the NEK and other than the one crazy cult in Craftsbury that used to pull guns on people, never had an issue (even when ending up on class 4 roads that turned out to be impassable where I had to back out or find a spot to turn around).

I would add one thing...if you're coming up to an intersection that you think might be a 3-way or 4-way stop, look for an actual indication of a stop sign (either an actual sign or a line on the road) and if there isn't one, DON'T STOP.

The intersection where 14 South and 15 split in Hardwick is horrible for this. People coming up the hill don't have to stop, but probably one in four cars does anyway. And it creates a traffic nightmare. Partly because if the road is even a tiny bit slippery, it can be impossible to get going again on that hill if you have to stop (I know this because I once had to do a 3-point turn in the middle of the road and go back down the hill because we had an early snowstorm and I didn't have my winter tires on and could not go forward...one of those days when they predicted "flurries" and we ended up with 4").

It's also a huge pain for trucks to get going again on that hill if they have to stop. That said, despite the signs on the two directions that do have to stop telling them that cross traffic doesn't stop, people will pull out in front of cars that are coming up the hill all the time. So you do have to watch when you're coming up the hill, but you definitely don't need to stop...

There are multiple intersections like this in Vermont and they're all nightmares...

I just use my capital one card when I'm in Canada. No foreign transaction fees, everything is done with the current exchange rate, safer in case my card is stolen (if your debit card is stolen it's a HUGE pain to try to get the funds back, while with a credit card it's usually one 10-minute phone call), and depending on which card I use I can get points for purchases.

Health codes prohibit it, so you're unlikely to find many places that will allow it.

Tire chains are great in areas where they occasionally get deep snow (or you have to occasionally pass through areas with deep snow) but most of the winter the roads are fine and so winter tires would just get eaten up by driving on bare, warm pavement. Here, our roads are potentially shitty all the time from October/November through April. Even the last storm we got a week ago (got 8" of snow after all the rain in my area) took about 5-6 days for the roads to be completely clear again. As in, even with great snow tires I was driving in 4WD 90% of the time.

That said, I've had a few nights unexpectedly driving in freezing rain when I wished I had chains. It's something I keep meaning to buy for those rare "just in case" times. We're getting more freezing rain most years than we ever did 20-30 years ago, and that's when snow tires don't do much but chains would definitely help.

Oh, and dad ended up having to call someone with a bucketloader to come clean out the end of the driveway, it was that solid...

I've got a couple I can remember:

The winter of '95-'96 I lived in Danville and we had this big long driveway that used to drift at the end. We'd gotten some snow and quite a bit of wind, so the bottom was all drifted, probably 5' deep. Dad decides to take me to school in his plow truck and just plow on the way out. Well, he underestimated how deep the snow was and pretty soon there's just a 7' tall snowbank at the end of the driveway that he can't move. I ran up to the house to call my best friend to see if they could come pick me up at the end of the driveway but no answer. So I had to walk to school (about a mile), including climbing over that 7' drift. Mom called and let them know I'd be late but was on my way...

The second one was Valentine's day 2012. We'd gotten a pretty good storm the night before, probably 14" or so. My ex-husband had left a little less than two months earlier, so it was my first winter dealing with all the snow shoveling, etc. on my own (lived in town, so it was manageable, but when you're depressed and heartbroken and broke, it's a lot to deal with). I woke up Valentine's day morning to my dog barking. I looked outside and my neighbor's teenage son was shoveling my walkways for me. I'd lived in that house for almost a decade and had never really met most of my neighbors other than a passing hello, but they obviously noticed I was there alone and it was really touching that they'd do that for me. Still makes me tear up thinking about it. All I could do at the time was stick my head out the door and yell thank you to him.

I lived in Danville that year and it was a super snowy one for sure! We went to the neighbor's for dinner during a storm that dropped 3' of snow and we all piled into dad's plow truck to go across the street (long driveway) because he knew he'd need to plow us back in.

Rail in the NEK would be amazing...Newport -> Barton -> Lyndonville -> St. J and from there could branch off South, East, and West. Getting out of the NEK (especially if you're headed west) is so time-consuming and such a pain, especially in the winter...

Yep, especially for any kind of mental health providers. Very few take MVP in my experience. Most take BCBS.

Aldi has the best dumpster diving options. I'd definitely welcome one anywhere in northern VT.

Moog's Place in Morrisville has the best burgers. Personal favorite is the Vermonter, but Mondays are burger night and they usually have really creative specials.

Not necessarily. There are two tax rates: homestead and non-homestead. Homestead is primary residence, non-homestead is everything else. Zoning, building type, etc. may effect the valuation of the property, but the tax rate is the same whether it's a second home, Airbnb, hotel, factory, retail space, etc. And in many places, businesses have lobbied to have the non-homestead tax rate be lower than the homestead rate. So second homes and rentals are often taxed at a lower rate...