Noah Kahan Asked Fans Not to Visit His Family’s Home —Try These 7 Vermont Experiences Instead
Look, we get it. You’ve had “Stick Season” on repeat since 2022, you cried through the whole tracklist of “The Great Divide” when it dropped in April 2026, and somewhere deep in your chest there’s a Vermont-shaped ache that won’t quit. The mountains. The maple. The specific kind of melancholy that only exists between Halloween and the first real snow. You want to go.
Here’s the thing: you can do the trip. You just can’t do it in Strafford.
Noah grew up in Strafford, a town with a 2020 census population of 1,094 — not a typo, not a rounding error, just one thousand and ninety-four people. As his fame ballooned, fans started showing up at his family’s home, and he’s asked, repeatedly and clearly, for everyone to please stop. He even wrote about it. “Porchlight” is essentially the song version of a polite restraining order, and in a BBC interview, he laid the whole conflicted feeling bare:
“I come from this place that’s so special to me and I felt like I’d sullied that somehow by singing about it and by making merch with my town on it. I felt like I no longer had that place as a refuge… so the song is all of my biggest fears said back to me.”
So. We respect the man. We love the music. We go to Vermont anyway — just not his Vermont. Here’s how to plan a weekend that feels like the album cover without making him regret writing it.
1. Order a Creemee (and Don’t Call It Soft Serve)
If you sit down at a Vermont counter and ask for ice cream, you’re going to see “creemee” on the menu and you need to know what to do. It’s soft serve, but it’s also a whole thing.
“While some say it came from a regional adaptation of the French word ‘crème,’ others credit it to the higher butterfat content that makes Vermont soft serve so delightfully creamy,” per Hello Burlington VT.
If you’re there in summer, you order maple. Non-negotiable. Some superb spots: Palmer Lane Maple in Jericho, The Sweet Spot’s lakeside creemee window along the Burlington Bike Path and Offbeat Creemee at the Essex Experience, which does plant-based versions for the dairy-averse.
2. Go Brewery-Hopping In Burlington
Vermont doesn’t have the highest raw brewery count in America, but it leads the country in breweries per capita, according to U.S. News Travel. For a guy whose discography is essentially a love letter to the cold months and the people you drink them with, this feels relevant.
Burlington picks: Foam Brewers, Zero Gravity, Burlington Beer Company, Switchback Brewing Co. and Four Quarters. Order something hazy. Sit by a window. Be a little sad on purpose.
3. Visit a Maple Syrup Farm
The state runs on maple in a way that feels almost spiritual once you’re there. Try Sugartree Maple Farm in Williston, Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock or Baird Farm Maple Syrup in North Chittenden. You will leave with a tin you didn’t budget for. It’s fine.
4. Hike the Green Mountains
This is the part where you actually feel the songs. Noah is genuinely good at making you understand why someone would love and resent a landscape at the same time, and the only way to get it on a cellular level is to walk into one.
Some options that won’t put you in his backyard:
- Bald Mountain in Westmore
- Stowe Pinnacle in Stowe
- Sterling Pond in Cambridge
- Camel’s Hump (West Side) in Huntington
- Mount Tom and the Pogue in Woodstock
Bring layers. Vermont weather has the emotional range of a breakup album.
5. Get Out on the Water
If you’re visiting in summer, Lake Champlain will trick you into thinking Vermont is coastal. It’s enormous, edged with beaches and good for renting a canoe or a motorboat. Lake Willoughby up north and Spruce Lake down south are quieter alternatives.
There are also natural swimming holes scattered across the state — short trails that open up into spring-fed pools. The unofficial scripture for this is swimmingholes.org/vt.html. Bring water shoes. Bring a friend who will jump first.
6. Eat Farm-to-Table, Because Vermont Actually Means It
Vermont takes its farmers seriously, and the menus reflect it. Hen of the Wood in Burlington is the splurge. Doc Ponds in Stowe is the cozy one. Starry Night Cafe in Ferrisburgh is the romantic one. Do a little research and pick the vibe that matches whatever you’re feeling that day — heartbroken, hopeful, in between.
7. Ski the Season Noah Keeps Singing About
If you’re coming in winter, you’re really coming for the thing the music is about. Stowe, Sugarbush, Jay Peak and Mount Snow all deliver. Make a weekend of it. Stay somewhere with a fireplace. Wear flannel unironically.
The whole point of going to Vermont as a Kahan fan isn’t to find him. It’s to understand what he was trying to tell you about the place — the cold, the closeness, the way a small town can feel like both a refuge and a cage. You can get all of that without ever pulling onto his street. That’s the move. That’s the respect.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
