Vermont is a very beautiful and very rural state. As you drive north on route 91, it becomes even more beautiful and definitely more rural. At Ryegate you enter the Northeast Kingdom. The Northeast Kingdom is comprised of three counties: Caledonia, Essex and Orleans. On a map it occupies the upper right-hand corner of the state, bordering Canada and New Hampshire. This may be one of the last places in the U.S. that offers a glimpse into what our country was like in the past, before suburban sprawl, the chain store, and the strip mall.

Imagine driving through a lush green area that contains mountains, lakes, forests and family farms. Now imagine that while you are driving through this area you do not see a McDonald's, a big box store, or a town the outskirts if which contain tacky strip malls and chain restaurants. Imagine stopping in a small town whose commercial center consists of a family-owned general store that also serves as the Post Office and gas station. It's hard to imagine, because areas like this are disappearing all over the U.S.

The Northeast Kingdom is not on the ocean, and it is far enough from the big cities of the East Coast to avoid being a major summer home destination. The winters are long enough to keep many people from moving here. And because of its rural nature, there are not a lot of jobs. For these reasons, the Northeast Kingdom is sparsely populated. This lack of population has helped it resist the changes that have swallowed up a lot of rural America. The residents themselves have resisted turning this beautiful region into another cookie-cutter piece of real-estate.

Something that may cross your mind as you visit this region is that it is a place of unsurpassed natural beauty where people still work for a living. There are tourist attractions, but the entire region is not given over to tourism. A lot of people still make a living by working the land. It is an area that is not protected from development by turning it into a National Park or limiting it exclusively to tourist use, but rather by the people themselves living in harmony with their environment.

For more information, visit the Travel and Tourism Association: http://www.travelthekingdom.com