r/NewToVermont

I've been here for 3 years and am having a very tough time getting connected, especially in the arts community. I also live in one of the more rural areas of the state. I've heard how tough it is here, and the reality is really starting to set in. I'm 51 and questioning my decision to move here, even though I absolutely love the natural world, and living in one of the most beautiful states. I also don't have a back up plan at this time.

My daughter will be working as a nurse in St. Johnsbury and living near Montpelier. I realize it’s a long commute, especially in winter.
For those familiar with that drive, would you recommend studded winter tires, or are good non-studded winter tires sufficient?
She’ll be driving a Subaru Crosstrek and will sometimes need to commute when the weather isn’t ideal because of her hospital schedule. I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who regularly drive this route in winter.

I’ve been working on a Vermont-focused map/app for the past few months and figured I’d finally share it here!

The basic idea is to make it easier to discover what’s around Vermont... local businesses, restaurants, coffee shops, parks, trails, events, museums, recreation, weird little places, etc, without everything being dominated by national chains or SEO listicles. It's a small state, we gotta use the most of it!

It’s turned into a surprisingly large data project. I’m combining a bunch of Vermont-specific public datasets with OpenStreetMap and other sources, cleaning/matching places, indexing events, and experimenting with ways of ranking things by local relevance/popularity.

My background is in mapping/routing and recommendation systems... it’s still very much a work in progress, but there’s enough there now that I’d love feedback from people who actually live in Vermont (or are just touring here during this awesome leaf season)

What’s missing? What’s wrong? What would make this genuinely useful to you? Does it work properly on your phone as well as desktop?

And if you know of a great local place, trail, event source, recreation dataset, or other Vermont-specific thing that I’m overlooking, I’d especially love to hear about it.

Happy Vermonting!