The Travel Transformation Podcast: Self-development & personal growth tips for travel lovers & adventure seekers · Jessica Grace Coleman

156. My USA Autumn Adventure Trip: Waterbury & Stowe, Vermont

December 3, 2024·43 min·3 clips

This frog is my spirit animal just banging random stuff having no idea what's going on in life.

Jessica picks up the autumn road trip after finally getting off the Woodstock hill. She is relieved, and the new Waterbury Airbnb gives the trip a home base, even though she is still recording it as she goes. The next day she heads back to Waterbury, a place she already loved from a visit seven years earlier. The draw is the Waterbury-Stowe Road, because it packs a lot of good stops into a few minutes and makes the outing easy to shape around. Cabot Creamery is there too. She skips it this time because she knows exactly how much cheese she would end up buying. Cold Hollow Cider Mill is first on the list. The smell hits as soon as she walks in, all appley, autumnal, and properly comforting, and the place works as a shop, cafe, cider-press stop, and tasting room all at once. She gets hot cider and a couple of apple cider donuts. Back at the Airbnb, she eats and drinks while she is still only nine minutes away, which makes going back for another round feel easy enough. Pumpkin butter becomes the other obsession. It ends up on donuts, bagels, and just about anything else she can spread it on. Ben & Jerry's is only five minutes farther down the road. She visits it again after loving it on the earlier trip, so it lands as a familiar favourite rather than a new discovery. The day keeps its charm in the ordinary parts. There is the gravel-road memory, the tiredness, the drive, and the sense that the logistics are part of the story instead of something to hurry past. That makes the whole thing feel like a real travel voice note rather than a polished itinerary. She wraps up by saying she has rambled enough for one episode and promising Boston next, where Ruth means she will no longer be travelling solo. It ends on an easy, autumnal exhale.

As heard by us

A loose autumn road diary built around Cold Hollow Cider Mill, Ben and Jerry's, and recording on the move.

This episode follows Jessica's USA autumn trip from the Woodstock hill down into Waterbury and back to familiar ground. Cold Hollow Cider Mill gets the most attention, with hot cider, apple cider donuts, pumpkin butter, and that appley autumn smell she notices as soon as she…

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Why you'd press play

You want a cosy autumn road-day with cider mill stops and a little gravel-road drama.

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