Burlington Named Best College Town by Travel + Leisure

The Lake Champlain waterfront in Burlington, VT

Burlington, VT has been named America's best college town by Travel + Leisure magazine in 2013.

Author Beth Collins examined what Travel + Leisure readers had to say about cool college towns. "Sure, big cities have their glitz, but it's the kind of understated charm, diversity, and affordability that draws visitors to cool college towns," she writes. Using the Twitter hashtag #TLTowns, Travel + Leisure readers nominated their favorite towns, then followed up by voting online for 744 U.S. towns in 55 categories, including best college town.

"With local legends like Ben and Jerry and jam-band Phish, this lakefront town is known for its hippie vibe," Collins writes about Burlington, which rose to number one in 2013. "And while breweries, coffee shops (rated No. 9), bike paths and live music venues solidify its college with a capital C identity, a thriving artisanal food scene suggests that Burlington is growing up."

Burlington was the only town in New England that made the list. "Talk to University of Vermont alums, and they'll wax poetic about the college-crowd scene," summarized Collins. With Champlain College, Burlington College, Community College of Vermont and Saint Michael College's all in the area, Burlington is bustling with college youth.

Lake Champlain, the artisanal food scene, as well as music and culture put Burlington at the top of the list.

Read the full list of America's 20 Best College Towns at http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/americas-best-college-towns-2013


Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.