Find Your B. in Burlington

Ask ten people what they love about Burlington and you'll get ten different answers. The lake. The food. The music. The fact that you can park your car on a Friday night and not need it again until Sunday. The thing they stumbled into that they didn't see coming.

That last one. That's the B.

It's not a place or a checklist or a best-of list somebody made for you. It's the thing that makes a trip feel like yours. The meal you'll still be talking about six months later. The view you didn't plan on. The moment where Burlington stops being a destination and starts being a memory.

Everyone's got one. Most people find it by accident.

One person's B is a sunrise paddle on Lake Champlain before the rest of the world wakes up. Another's is a booth at Hen of the Wood at 7pm on a Wednesday, splitting a bottle of something orange and taking their time. Someone else's B is a lawn chair at Waterfront Park watching a band they've never heard of, and leaving as a fan.

All of them are right. All of them are Burlington. So what's yours? Here are a few to get you started.

The one who eats their way through a city.

Burlington has no right to have this many good restaurants. It's a city with a James Beard semifinalist, a legendary hole-in-the-wall dumpling spot, and more wood-fired pizza than any place this cold has any business making.

The Church Street energy is real. But so is the backstreet stuff. The tucked-away counters. The places that don't need a sign because everyone already knows.

Ask a local where they ate last weekend. That's usually the answer.

The one who goes outside first.

Lake Champlain doesn't care what time it is. Neither does the Leddy Park shoreline, or the Burlington Bike Path at golden hour, or the top of Camel's Hump on a clear October morning when half of Vermont is laid out below you in red and gold.

Burlington is a small city with an embarrassingly large backyard. You can be in the wilderness within twenty minutes. You can be on the water in five.

Rent a kayak or paddleboard. Pack something from City Market. Go find a rock to sit on.

The one who knows that some things are sacred.

Every Vermonter has an opinion about creemees. Soft-serve done right, with local dairy, in a flavor that you've never heard of, or a twisted combination of two things you can't even imagine would taste this good. Like a Maple-Black Raspberry twist. It's one of those things that sounds simple until you have one on a hot August afternoon standing in the sun, and then you get it completely.

Burlington takes creemee season seriously. So much, that Hello Burlington launched it's Creemee Challenge June 1st, where you can try all the different creemee spots and if you make it to the end, you'll earn yourself a free creemee on us. Check it out here.

The one who wants to know a place, not just visit it.

There's a version of Burlington that takes a little longer to find. The farmers market tucked beside the barge canal on a Saturday morning. The Friday Night Getdown with its lineup of local food trucks. The Battery Street concerts that sneak up on you when you came for the view. The South End Art Hop every September, where you walk into galleries that used to be machine shops and meet the people making things with their hands.

Burlington rewards the curious. It's one of those places that the more you look, the more you find. Slow down a little and it starts to show you things.

The South End is worth an afternoon. Start on Pine Street and wander.

Burlington doesn't ask you to be a certain kind of person to belong here. It just asks you to show up.

The rest sorts itself out. Don't dream It B. It