Best Waterfronts in Vermont

Vermont has no ocean coastline, so its waterfront identity runs entirely through Lake Champlain and its rivers — a fact that, rather than limiting the state, gives its waterfronts a more specific and less generic character than a typical beach-town coastline would.

Burlington Waterfront

Burlington's Lake Champlain waterfront is the most significant in the state by a wide margin, anchored by a converted rail corridor bike path, a working marina, and mountain views across the water toward the Adirondacks. It gives Vermont's largest city a civic and recreational waterfront on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the state.

Lake Champlain's Shoreline Towns

Communities strung along Lake Champlain's Vermont shore connect farmland, small villages, and open water in a way unusual for inland New England, and the lake's west-facing orientation produces some of the state's most reliably dramatic sunsets over the water and mountains beyond.

The Champlain Islands

North of Burlington, the Lake Champlain Islands — North Hero, South Hero, and Isle La Motte — offer a slower, more agricultural waterfront experience connected to the mainland by causeways and bridges, popular for cycling and quiet lakeside camping away from the city.

Quechee and the Connecticut River Towns

Vermont's eastern river towns, particularly along the Connecticut River that forms the state's border with New Hampshire, offer a different kind of waterfront: bridge crossings, old mill architecture, and valley settlements shaped by the river's course rather than by open recreational shoreline.

Lake Bomoseen and the Inland Lakes

Away from Champlain, Vermont maintains a genuine warm-weather lake culture at spots like Lake Bomoseen, the state's largest lake located entirely within its borders, supporting swimming, boating, and the kind of family summer recreation that balances out Vermont's better-known ski and foliage identity.

Shelburne Farms and the Southern Shoreline

South of Burlington, the Shelburne Farms property combines a working farm, a National Historic Landmark estate, and a Lake Champlain shoreline that has become one of Vermont's most photographed agricultural-waterfront combinations.

St. Albans Bay

Further north, St. Albans Bay offers a quieter, more working-harbor version of Vermont's Champlain waterfront, tied historically to the railroad era and today valued for fishing access and small-town lake life rather than the more built-up recreational scene in Burlington.

Kingsland Bay and D.A.R. State Parks

South of Burlington, Kingsland Bay State Park and D.A.R. State Park give the Champlain Valley two of its most accessible public swimming and picnicking waterfronts, each small enough to feel like a local secret compared with the busier city waterfront, but each opening onto the same lake and mountain backdrop that defines Vermont's water identity.

Why Water Still Defines Vermont Towns

In a heavily forested, mountainous state, water functions as relief and open space as much as recreation — which is why so many of Vermont's most livable and memorable towns, from Burlington to the smallest Champlain Valley village, are organized around a shoreline rather than away from one.