We travel for all sorts of reasons. Some of us look at it as a learning experience, others as an opportunity to challenge ourselves with adventure. Sometimes it’s just business or maybe we just want a little change of scenery. When we travel by choice, we typically intend to get away for a bit, recharge the batteries and freshen up our perspective before heading home to plug back in.
Every so often, though, you find a place that seems to share your values, where the balance between urban amenities and the natural world is as obvious as the overall quality of life. Every now and again, you find yourself wishing you could stretch out your stay. Or you might even find yourself thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just stay?”
That doesn’t happen every day, and it doesn’t happen everywhere, but visitors occasionally do move to a place they've fallen in love with during their travels. In fact, it’s not farfetched to assume that people are more likely to relocate to a place that they’ve already visited than one they’ve never seen before.
Tourism promotion has evolved by leaps and bounds over the last couple of decades. In fact, it’s not even called tourism promotion anymore. It’s called destination marketing, or even destination management. And while healthy destinations certainly want to attract a healthy dose of visitors, they also want to attract talent for their workforce, new residents, and even economic investment in their business communities.
Maura Gast of Visit Irving (TX) probably conveyed the concept most eloquently, saying “If you build a place people want to visit, you build a place where people want to live. If you build a place where people want to live, you'll build a place where people want to work. If you build a place where people want to work, you build a place where business needs to be. If you build a place where business has to be, you'll build a place where people have to visit.” It's hard to argue with the logic.
With that in mind, Hello Burlington is pleased to announce a new section of our website dedicated to those adventurers and dreamers ready to imagine living here between the Green Mountains and the coast of Lake Champlain. In the coming months and years we’ll be filling these pages with info and stories about our towns and neighborhoods, the surprising (and not so surprising) industries that are growing in the area, great places to work and play, and much more. We’ll also shoot straight about the current challenges to relocation (housing, anyone?) as well as the remarkable progress we’re making in getting around them.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already shown some interest in moving to Vermont some day. So we should make this a conversation. Tell us what you want to hear more about. Ask us some questions. And by all means, don’t stop at our relocation pages. Check out places to stay, places to eat, things to do and maybe even consider coming for a visit!. It’s the best way to know if you might like the Green Coast Life.
