Vermont Ecovillage Tour: 8 Community Tours in 8 Days
This month, I had the privilege and pleasure of traveling to Vermont to tour 8 ecovillages over 8 days! It was my first trip with EcovillageTours.com, and I hope to do more in the future - like India, Bali, and Greece! As I’ve reflected on my time in Vermont, I noticed more patterns among all the communities I’ve seen, including Washington State. I also found some practices I’ve only seen in Vermont, like maple sugaring farms. Back home in Missouri, families were surrounded by corn, soybeans, and wheat fields. When I moved to western Washington, I learned about timberland communities. Here, now in the Spokane Valley, communities thrive in the high desert thanks to the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer & moisture along the foothills of the northern Rocky Mountains. I do love the climate here, and was reminded I prefer it’s dryness, after experiencing hot and humid Vermont. Actually, it wasn’t the worst summer weather I’ve lived through, and I can’t complain too much. It was a beautiful, mostly easygoing, solo vacation. I got plenty of rest, and still felt like we traveled far and wide on a huge variety of adventures. By the end of our nearly 9 days together, this group of “Ecovillage Tourists” created our own sense of community - baby included!
Yes, we had an 11-month old join our group of 13 adults, or 15 if you include our tour guides Cynthia Tina & Nathan Oxenfeld. We began in Burlington, Vermont, just a few miles from the airport at Burlington Cohousing. After we were greeted by kind smiles, everyone made a name tag and made tea. Then we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves, were given maple candy, shared where we traveled from, and how we felt after our journey. We came from 8 states and 1 territory: Quebec, New York, California, Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. Then, after a nutritious home-cooked meal, we began our first tour…
NOTE: As I describe what I learned about each community, please keep in mind they are based on notes made quickly by hand while learning on the go. Please forgive any errors or inaccuracies in my notes, and remember these details can (and likely will) change over time.
Burlington Cohousing
This was the most urban community we visited, which makes sense because it’s the most populated city we visited in Vermont. They had 32 units total, and 9 of them are owned by Champlain Housing Trust (creating shared equity ownership), making them affordable housing units and creating a more financially diverse community. Not to mention the wide variety of unit size, from 800 to over 1200 square feet per unit. Burlington Cohousing says on their website: “comprised of 12 townhouses, 2 single-family homes and 18 flats. We enjoy a great location – directly across from the University of Vermont (UVM) campus and the UVM Medical Center and adjacent to UVM’s 68 acre Centennial Woods nature preserve! Although surrounded by nature, we are about a mile and a half from Church Street, Lake Champlain, and downtown. Burlington is a fun, progressive small urban city with numerous shops, restaurants, services, and public events.”
“We don’t have a property manager, we have six committees” was one of my favorite lines I heard there. While I know several great property managers, and have experienced quality property management services myself, I have often wondered what being involved in my own communities’ self-governance would be like. Later in the tour, we discover just how much work that really takes! More on that later…
Burlington Cohousing houses 57 souls between 3 to 80 years old. When asked what kind of intentions or interests brought them together and continues to make them a strong community? They said: games, activism, singing, education (sharing knowledge), TV/movies, political alignment, and local events. They used a consensus model to make decisions, “modified sociocracy” as they described it. They are clear in their membership process: they are NOT assisted living. But there are plenty of benefits aging in this community: shared meals, activities, supportive neighbors, and locally grown food. Many members feel a sense of belonging, participating in their “generative decision making processes.” They say people that do well in community tend to 1. Have a willingness to participate in this process, and 2. Be willing and able to stay present in the face of conflict. “Dance with disagreement,” if you will. Because one thing is certain when you put people together: they are not always going to get along.
Burlington Cohousing entrance on our first day of the tour.
Bristol Village Cohousing
One of the best things about Bristol Village, in my opinion, is their proximity to the tiny town this cohousing community is nestled in. Just a couple blocks from downtown Bristol, villagers are steps away from one hoppin’ historic strip of Victorian homes, a forested courtyard park, white church steeples (complete with bells on the hour), and rustic boutiques, shops, and cafes. Our tour guide Mark even managed the old inn, and gave us a look around.
Bristol Village also uses the decision-making model of sociocracy. They say it takes longer, but allows everyone to have a voice. They have 16 residences: 5 cottages (single family homes) and 4 buildings (1 threeplex, 1 fourplex, and 2 apartments in the original historic house, built between 1863-1865. I was lucky enough to sleep on the main floor, against a tall slender window and original paisley wallpaper.
When all 3 lots were up for sale (the 1863 house and two surrounding lots) the community rezoned the 3 acre lots into one Planned Urban Development. This allowed for more dense housing, and space to create a condo association. Each member pays dues according to the size and occupants of the unit. These dues are determined at a mandatory annual meeting, where major expenses are taken into account. There are a few streams of income, including renting out rooms in the historic house on Airbnb to help pay the mortgage. The 3-acre lot is now 100% solar-powered, and plugs into the local electric grid, the Green Mountain power agreement. All utilities are locally operated, including requiring everyone to have their own septic system, since there is no public sewage company.
Bristol, VT
Living Tree Alliance
At this point in the tour, I started to realize the emotional weight of what I was exploring: a place to belong. I have been on this journey in every way imaginable. The past few years, I haven’t known where I wanted to root myself, geographically, for a variety of reasons. In every community, people have found land they want to live on - and stayed there. Of course, people will always come and go. But every founder of every community, decided at one point, “This is where I will create a home.” And to them, home meant a village. It wasn’t until the rain picked up during our time at Living Tree Alliance that I started to think about these things. It makes sense that a spiritual community moved my own spirit - quite literally to tears in the rain. So after some emotional time in solitude, I felt a renewed sense of confidence that I am so called to a tour like this because there is a burning desire within me to reunite myself to the feeling of a village; and by default, bring others into that happiness with me. The environment at Living Tree provided me the perfect space to remember my sense of purpose, and all my life choices have meaning. I remembered that home is allowed to feel safe, wild, and free.
Our tour guide and founder Sephirah told us there are 3 parts to Living Tree: the farm, cohousing community, and nonprofit organization. The nonprofit is the mission-driven part of the organization, and runs summer camps for kids on the farm. Throughout the year, they run a CSA and classes. Their tent with tables and an outdoor kitchen - with a water spigot between the kitchen and orchard - felt nostalgic to me somehow. The orchard was filled with trees that represented significant events or people. It was beautiful. Beyond the orchard was the greenhouse, then plots of alternating perennials and annuals. Our group harvested kale, cilantro, raspberries (white/yellow, red, and black), carrots, turnips, and scallions. We made salad and feasted on our harvest, homemade bread and herbal pesto, and cold lemon bars.
White Pine Cohousing
After our tour at White Pine, we drove to a large house used as an Airbnb ski lodge. All 16 souls in our tour group slept under the same roof, and without any other community members around, for the first time since our tour started. I think there was something about this village that really grounded us all in together. Maybe it’s because we realized we were halfway through, and it was our first circle sharing deeper reflections so far. I told them I remembered on this journey that I am not “off” my purpose, even though something in me wondered why I was coming on this trip. I realized this work is my passion, my purpose, and part of perhaps the biggest question in my life: where is my village?
White Pine Cohousing holds 6 single-family houses in a row, so the front and back doors open to big sky and a field or hillside. When they organized, around 2008, they presented a Planned Unit Development to their local zoning board. Two houses shared one porch, so they were connected by one roof. They had 32 acres of woods, 9 acres is either developed or farmed, so 41 acres total. They are a rural community, and have a tight and vast rural network. Neighborhood potlucks, hosted often by White Pines or neighboring farms. They are “maxed out” on buildings per their zoning (1 house per 7 acres) and have a 6-house septic system and 6-house well on the land. Their numbers have ebbed and flowed over the years, and right now 10 people live there.
They use a “consensus minus one” model of the sociocracy method of decision making. That’s 4 for 4 that use sociocracy! Their community has 3 spheres of influence: private homes, limited common (200 feet down the slope of their backyard), & public land. There is a shared garden, trails through the woods, and a common house/barn (where the auto-fed pellet stove is the single boiler that heats all 6 homes). The “capital improvement fund” determines each household’s annual fee, which includes maintenance of roads, utilities, and buildings. They reflected that one thing they should have been more clear on during their founding: their membership application requiring being a finance-able tenant. Every applicant must be able to get a mortgage, or some type of housing loan. If members need help paying bills, this brings important community discussions into play. Many communities face the question of: how and where do we subsidize for each other At some point, the cost of maintenance every tenant shares in responsibility. Ask any homeowner: the work is never done. There is always a give and take with community - just like all giving comes back around as receiving. Our group gathered for a Q&A in the upstairs of the common building. It was the first cool day of the trip - we had windows open while we were in the upper room, and the cool breeze chilled us enough, someone closed them. It was a cold snap in the Vermont summer - but hot weather would be back soon enough…
At this point, I made notes of patterns I was seeing in these communities (including my experience with intentional communities in the Pacific Northwest):
Communication style is always key (understanding individuals means understanding groups)
Conflict resolution models and plans
Individual relationship to community responsibility
Little alters, shrines, beauty, art, poetry… was everywhere. In kitchens, common spaces, woods, gardens, storage and craft rooms… E.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.
Earthseed Ecovillage
The newest community we visited. 430 acres of mostly undeveloped land in the mountains of Jamaica, VT, Earthseed Ecovillage. Two people stayed over their first winter, 2024-2025. Now around ten people are sharing the land, completing building projects and gardens, specializing in forest farming and wild building. We toured their nursery of native trees and shrubs, filled with edibles and some experiments! They’re tending young trees like hickan (hickory/pecan), persimmon, hickory, butternut (yes, it’s a tree!), and European walnut. Now, I love walnut trees - they are one of my favorite nature scents, at least in the top 3. So I love this aspect of their community plan! And I love that they encouraged us to do the same, because wouldn’t you want a native, locally grown baby tree when you go tree shopping?
They used a pay-what-you-can model for several Forest Alchemy shop items, including foraged herbal medicine, hand-made printed shirts, and knit socks, hats, and gloves. They have work parties with locals and traveling community seekers. They have a newsletter to keep in touch with other people interested in leading a regenerative village lifestyle.
At this point in the tour, I had one of the biggest synchronicities EVER. One of my community buddies from back in Duvall, Alex, moved out of Western Washington soon before I did last year. He thought he had moved to Vermont, but I wanted to confirm that. So on the road to Earthseed, Alex and I were texting and he confirmed he moved to southern Vermont, and lived down the road from Earthseed! As luck would have it, he had an unusually early shift that day and could tour the community with us. Since he already knew the founders from local events (not surprised at all) he joined our friendly band for a couple hours. After swimming at the river, spotting one of my favorite plants Ghost Pipe, and saying goodbye to my old friend… we began to head back to our temporary home.
Cobb Hill Cohousing
An extremely well-planned community, designed by the woman who wrote the book on systems thinking. Cob Hill’s website says “in 1981, Dana Meadows founded the International Network of Resource Information Centers (INRIC), a global process of information sharing and collaboration among hundreds of leading academics, researchers, and activists in the broader sustainable development movement (an international effort to reverse damaging trends in the environment, economy, and social systems). Meadows was the founder of the Sustainability Institute (now the Donella Meadows Institute), combining research in global systems with practical demonstrations of sustainable living, including the development of a cohousing or ecovillage and organic farm at Cobb Hill in Hartland, Vermont.”
Dana Meadows On vision
“If we haven’t specified where we want to go, it is hard to set our compass, to muster enthusiasm, or to measure progress. But vision is not only missing almost entirely from policy discussions; it is missing from our culture. We talk easily and endlessly about our frustrations, doubts, and complaints, but we speak only rarely, and sometimes with embarrassment, about our dreams and values.”
–“Envisioning a Sustainable World”, Feb 12, 1996
On politics
“You may be able to fool the voters, but not the atmosphere."
We have within us…
“We have within us the ability to wonder,
the intelligence to understand,
and the love to care about that which we wonder at.
I try to play to those abilities,
within myself and within others,
and in them I always find hope.”
–Dana Meadows wrote of her work in an online forum in 1992
Cobb Hill was heated by wood in the winter and cooled by solar in the summer. Electricity was almost all totally electric. There are between 50-60 people who live on the land. Several work on the land, but still a minority. Some locals are hired to work at the farm as well. Cobb Hill Creamery produces award-winning Vermont Cheese! I definitely tried some with homemade bread over lunch. After lunch, we also tried our Mallow Tea, with a little extra herbs like tulsi or chamomile. That morning, a group of other plant-lovers and I wandered the gardens. We found angelica; I nibbled the seeds to relieve my menstrual cramps which began that morning. The seeds were bitter, nutty, and grounding. We also found skullcap, plantain, purslane, lamb’s quarters, blue vervain, clary sage, raspberry, sorrel, st. john’s wort, and more! Our guide, herbalist Audrey, used a small pitchfork to dig around the base of a mallow plant. The beautiful purple flowers were used in our tea and salad. The leaves could have been used for tea, but we didn’t save them - we wanted the roots! Once they were washed, they were chopped and put into a half gallon jar with a handful of other herbs.
At the end (or was it at the beginning?) of our time at Cobb Hill, Audrey asked us if we knew the 4 P’s of Cohousing? Enough people said no, so she told us: “Parking, Pets, Parenting, and Participation.” Cynthia told us later, sometimes people add a 5th: “Pennies!” Financial squabbles over any sum, large or small, can be the center of many couples, groups, and institutional struggles.
When we left Cobb Hill, I bought a bottle of their dark maple syrup and bag of maple sugar. I’d never tried maple “crumbles” before but it seems to be chunks of dried maple sugar before it’s powdered into dust. I later had maple crumbles on ice cream, which I thought was too sweet. So I’ll use it sparingly for special treats! I did get to experience my first Maple Cremee - plain jane maple soft serve ice cream! HEAVEN.
Headwaters Community
This is the community of our beloved tour guide, Cynthia! One of my favorite “features” of this tour is the curiosity and ingenuity of our tour guide, Cynthia. Getting to see her house, one she designed and built herself, was one of my favorite features of this trip. Headwaters holds 8 households. It was founded 15 years ago with 15 acres. 12 adults and about 10 children live on the land, among the 8 houses. There is a shared garden, pond, sauna, Earthship-style garden shed, an open central field, chicken coops, and several acres of trails. There are no committees, but there is a monthly gathering that most people can make. They wait for everyone to be present to make group decisions, and require consensus for financial and membership decisions. Usually the monthly gathering is a meal and campfire, so “most decisions are made around the campfire” is true here at Headwaters.
As a condo association, their annual dues go to road maintenance. The 10+ common acres are jointly owned with equal shares among residents, and each household owns their private residence. The first house we visited was Cynthia’s. We walked past a pond with lily pads and a bullfrog, soon to welcome koi fish. The design is narrow when you walk through the front door, past the burnt pine wood exterior to prevent rot and mold, and you can see a root cellar to your left. Keep walking and the grand cathedral-like ceilings make the kitchen and living room feel huge, and inspire me to stare upward. And there is so much to see: windows, bottles in the walls surrounded by mud and clay, drying racks filled with herbs, and a fireplace. We asked her questions about the building process, when and where she had help, what she’s done herself, and she told us about all kinds of processes she’s practiced and learned. Hugelkultur garden beds using woods-clearing debris, digging a rubble trench foundation, building walls with hempcrete blocks, dense backed cellulose, intello insulation, and how they prepped subfloor. Several walls are made lathe strips, using the slip and ship method of stuffing walls with hay, mud, and clay to create a heat and sound barrier. Finally, a natural plaster is smoothed over the walls, which we see almost complete in her bathroom. The countertop was finished with something I’d never heard before, Tadelakt. Overall, the house, yard, greenhouse, pond, and porch was BEAUTIFUL! Perhaps most importantly, Cynthia owns her home outright. Because she paid for the lot outright, had help and paying for projects as she goes, she is one of the 1% of Americans who own their home. I could dedicate a whole blog post to that phenomenon at some point in the future.
So after some tea and Q&A, we walked across the driveway toward the newest house at Headwaters. It is a new construction home, with the first phase completed and several natural elements. Next door was a modular house, brought in on wheels. Another home we toured was a round house with an earthen floor. The spiral layout allowed for a “roof kit” to be installed with a skylight in the middle. The only downside is the condensation, otherwise the aesthetic of a paneled circular ceiling made the house feel ethereal, open, woodsy, and calming. Behind that, a yurt for temporary housing and workshops. After a tour through the gardens, we came back to the houses for lunch. Mostly garden vegetables and berries, wild caught salmon, and berrie kudzu dessert… heaven. We broke up for lunch, and I went down to the river to swim and jump off a rock! We gathered for dinner with all the community members, and experienced a true “Headwaters community gathering.”
This was the day I started my moon cycle, and went back “home” to my off-grid hobbit house. This was the final chapter of our tour. Discussions at dinner and the fire included where we envisioned building our own dreams, village, and food system. Maybe it’s because it was the first day of my cycle, but I didn’t feel very talkative or engaging. I chatted quietly with a few people around me, got curious and felt nourished by conversation, but felt so sad inside. The Wall of Grief was here yet again - this time I realized I don’t feel connected to land in a way that I want to live in a village there. The privacy here at Headwaters was exactly what I want… but I don’t know where to live out this dream for myself. And in many, many ways… that’s heartbreaking. I have loved many lands - but don’t know where to root into one to call my own.
Heartbeet Lifesharing
This community impacted me in a truly heartfelt way. Heartbeet Lifesharing is a Camphill Academy community, which brings together people with and without disabilities to work, live, and share life together. Their website says this about the programming:
“The Camphill Academy offers three consecutive levels of certification, which build on each other and are typically completed in one, three, or five years of full-time study. Programs emphasize emergent field-based learning within the context of community life. In addition to academic and artistic coursework, students’ activities include participation in extended-family living, the cultivation of an active cultural and spiritual life, and supervised practice within the context of the home, café or bakery, craft workshop, biodynamic farm or garden, and other inclusive enterprises.”
The community is made up of “Friends” (people with intellectual, learning, or physical disabilities) and “Staff” (certified support or volunteers). Our tour was led by George, who was raised in a Camphill community, and found the environment to be positively transformative. He explained the philosophy came from the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, and holds a trusted place in the world of alternative education. Hearing the well-versed in our group discuss the Waldorf education and the underlying principles and history.. really made me wonder why it’s considered alternative at all. If inclusion were more “mainstream” maybe villages like this could be more accessible for people with disabilities. But due to the segregation of people with different abilities in past generations, and the continued social expectations that exist today (combined with a new wave of mental heath crises)… I can only hope society is ready for more communities like Heartbeet. I have envisioned a thriving deaf/hearing community when discussing village visions with my sister Angela, who was born deaf. Maybe because of my exposure to “invisible disabilities” early in life, I see their mission as noble, honest, and true. True in the sense that their philosophy holds such truth in my heart… we are all created equal. And when culture, society, and community shift more into projects like these, and we read more about them in the news, we can shift into a more inclusive world and intentionally choose to put disability segregation behind us.
Just for fun, I decided to ask ChatGPT: “What are the benefits of understanding and respecting different cultures and invisible disabilities?” This is what it said:
Understanding and respecting different cultures and invisible disabilities benefits both individuals and communities in powerful ways:
1. Stronger Relationships and Trust
When you take the time to understand someone’s cultural background or invisible disability, it signals respect.
This builds trust, encourages open communication, and reduces misunderstandings.
2. Better Collaboration and Teamwork
In workplaces or community projects, cultural awareness and disability inclusivity help everyone feel safe contributing their ideas.
This leads to more creative problem-solving because different perspectives are valued.
3. Reduced Bias and Stereotypes
Awareness challenges assumptions—such as judging behavior without knowing it might be linked to a disability like ADHD or a cultural communication style.
This creates a more fair and empathetic environment.
4. Improved Accessibility and Inclusion
Recognizing invisible disabilities (like chronic pain, mental health conditions, or neurodivergence) helps in designing spaces, policies, and events that more people can participate in fully.
Understanding cultural norms helps prevent exclusion, like unintentionally scheduling events during important cultural holidays.
5. Personal Growth and Emotional Intelligence
Exposure to different worldviews sharpens empathy, patience, and adaptability.
It teaches you to look beyond your own lens, which improves how you connect with people in all areas of life.
6. Stronger Communities and Social Harmony
Inclusive communities see less conflict and more cooperation.
Respect fosters a sense of belonging, reducing isolation for marginalized groups.
7. Practical and Professional Advantages
In business, cultural and disability awareness improves customer service, expands markets, and strengthens brand reputation.
In education, it helps teachers better reach and support all students.
This is the type of world Heartbeet Lifesharing, other Camphill Academy programs and communities, Waldorf-inspired education, and the broader intentional community movement is creating. I left this community feeling nourished, inspired, uplifted, and so so so grateful to have my eyes opened to something so transformative that I didn’t know existed. My only regret is not asking more questions… but I was very tired at this point in the trip, and perhaps a bit information-fatigued.
Conclusion
Overall, signing up for this tour was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself. I enjoy traveling along every once in awhile, so it was easy to book one ticket (you have to pack light anyway). I enjoy meeting new people, traveling to new places, and all things intentional community. So this experience ticked all the boxes when it comes to things to keep me entertained. I never felt a dull moment. The slow moments were times of solitude, which I found time and space to do most places we stayed. Even though I arrived without expectations, truly transformed me. Seeing so many villages back to back reminded me that this way of living can take as little or as much barrier to entry as you want it to. We said often:
“When you’ve seen one intentional community, you’ve seen one intentional community.”
Circumstances, origin stories, resources, timelines, constellations of people, politics, zoning, ecology, soil, water, sewage, governance, personalities, and well… human nature ALL have a part to play in the village. It sounds like one of the most daunting tasks to build, and yet so many founders of communities we spoke to all have lived there until death (and sometimes been buried on the land). I didn’t even mention green burial sites! I am so grateful to be reminded that village living isn’t too “subculture” to thrive in any market, is IS culture. Connection to each other, natural cycles, our environment, and landscape will open our minds to so many different ways of being with each other. And with any luck that will lead to more open hearts :)
I HIGHLY recommend this tour to anyone considering joining an Ecovillage Tour. I can’t say how other tours are, yet (India, I’m lookin’ at you!!) but I can say having someone else book all the details, drive you around, provide food, and housing costs at each beautiful community… worth every penny.
Bonus “community” at our overnight location… Sky Meadow Retreat Center
The home of my hobbit house. This is where we spent the final 3 nights of our tour. Our first night there, my menstrual cycle started. That was the first night I slept for 8 hours straight, in the same position, in a long, long time. I felt it both grounded me and changed me. I realized here that this journey had 3 solid chapters: the beginning, middle, and end. And that first night in Sky Meadow was the beginning of the end. And maybe I felt so tired and grounded because of my physical symptoms… but there was a solidifying that happened with the group while we were there that sweetened the “fruit” of our time together. On the last day, it felt like a family in the breakfast kitchen, ya know? It was such a sweet time and group of people. I hope to stay connected and maintain friendships with my fellow “ecovillage tourists” for years to come.
This was the place we grounded after 5 days of travel all over Vermont: Burlington to the southern mountains in Jamaica, and back up to the northeast kingdom. Here at Sky Meadow, we fell into the peaceful shadows of this rural haven. My introverted PMS self was lucky enough to get this little off-grid hut all to myself. I came home with new inspiration to build one myself, with an off-balance, funky roof and all. Chickens, sheep, vegetable gardens, pollinators, ponds that act as irrigation AND flood control (filled with crawdads and fish), dark skies that showed us the Milky Way deep into the night. This village, even though it wasn’t technically a full-time intentional community so wasn’t on the tour list, was a major perk of this ecovillage tour. Our host and owner, Brenden, explained the farming, gardening, trails, composting, and outhouse systems. It definitely still held a sacred intention: it held us.
