The 17 Best Swimming Holes in Vermont

Oakledge Park is Burlington's South End waterfront park on Lake Champlain, and it gives you three ways to get in the water: Blanchard Beach, the Cove, and the flat rock ledges on the western shore that regulars treat as an informal swimming hole. The ledges are the local move, popular for sunbathing and for lingering past sunset since the rock holds its heat into the evening, with the Adirondacks laid out across the lake.

The shoreline is mostly ledge and cobble rather than sand, so bring water shoes; zebra mussel shells on the lakebed are a known foot hazard. The water runs clear on settled summer days but changes quickly with wind and runoff, and the city monitors for cyanobacteria and E. coli, so check the swim water quality page before a visit after storms or in late summer. No lifeguards here, so supervise kids at the water even though the park itself, with its accessible playground and treehouse, is very family-oriented.

Little River State Park gives campers on Waterbury Reservoir two swim beaches of their own: the open, gravel A beach with mountain panoramas, and the grassy, sandy-bottomed B beach near where Stevenson Brook comes in. One visitor describes the water as cool and clear, and cool is putting it mildly, since one swimmer measured about 55 degrees.

Here's the catch: the park directs day-use swimmers who aren't camping to nearby Waterbury Center State Park instead, so treat these beaches as a camper's perk rather than a public swimming hole. There are no lifeguards, and the water is tested weekly in season for E. coli and cyanobacteria.

Leddy Beach is Burlington's laid back Lake Champlain swim spot, a big open beach inside Leddy Park on the city's west side, right along the Island Line Trail bike path. It is one of the city's monitored beaches, with daily cyanobacteria checks and twice weekly E. coli testing all summer.

That monitoring matters because water quality on Champlain can swing, and the beach closes when tests come back bad, so check the city's beach status before you load up the car. On a good day it is an easy, casual place to swim, with the park's fields, playground, and picnic bluffs right behind you.

Lake Willoughby is the closest thing Vermont has to a fjord, a glacially carved lake squeezed between the granite cliffs of Mount Pisgah and Mount Hor, and South Beach sits right at its dramatic southern tip. The water here is clear, cold, and spring fed, and the lake is one of Vermont's deepest at over 300 feet, so the bottom drops away fast once you wade in off the sand and cobble shoreline. This is a swimming hole for people who like their water bracing, it even serves as the start and finish for an organized long distance open water swim event.

A quick heads up before you pack the cooler: multiple visitor accounts describe South Beach as an informally clothing optional area in summer, while the town monitored North Beach at the other end of the lake is the more family oriented scene. The state rebuilt the parking and added a boardwalk in 2022, but the free lot still fills quickly on hot weekends, so go early.

The Dorset Quarry is what happens when one of the first commercial marble quarries in the United States floods and becomes a summer swimming hole. The old pit sits just off US Route 7 in East Dorset, in the Valley of Vermont between Mount Aeolus and the Green Mountains, and its marble ledges and cliffs have made it famous enough that national coverage describes it drawing cliff-jumping pilgrims.

This is a jump-and-plunge kind of place to swim rather than a wade-in beach. Like most flooded quarries, the depth can change abruptly and there is no lifeguard, and no source confirms a shallow, beach-style entry. Families with young kids should treat it with real caution rather than assume easy wading.

Wrightsville Beach Recreation Area is Montpelier's go-to swimming hole, a 350-foot man-made sand beach on Wrightsville Reservoir about six miles north of downtown. Four towns jointly run it as a fee-based public beach, and they have the water-quality receipts to brag about: recent E. coli samples ranged from 0 to 22 colonies per 100mL against a state limit of 235, which the operator markets as some of the cleanest public beach water in Vermont.

You swim inside a roped, designated zone that fishing has to stay at least 50 feet clear of, though there's no lifeguard, so it's swim at your own risk. The reservoir itself has history: it's a 1930s flood-control impoundment on the North Branch of the Winooski that flooded the former village of Wrightsville when the dam went in.

White's Beach is South Hero's official town beach on Lake Champlain, sitting along West Shore Road on the western shoreline of Grand Isle. The town ordinance defines a beach and swim area with a grassed, fenced section alongside the sand, and swimming is permitted in designated areas of the lake shore, which makes it the island town's sanctioned swimming hole.

The catch is access, which the town manages tightly in summer. From the Friday before Memorial Day through September 30, parking along West Shore Road requires a permit sticker, cheap for residents but allocated to non-residents through a lottery. Outside that window, no permit is needed at all.

Caspian Lake Public Beach is the free town beach in Greensboro, tucked into Vermont's Northeast Kingdom on a glacial lake of roughly 800 acres. It is the main public swim access on the lake, jointly overseen by a beach committee representing both Greensboro and Hardwick, and the town has confirmed through official state water testing that the water is suitable for swimming.

You swim straight off a sandy shoreline here, no scramble, no fuss, which makes it an easygoing family swimming hole rather than an adventure spot. The beach sits on Beach Road in the village, near Willey's Store, so it is simple to find.

Shelburne Town Beach is the classic small-town Vermont setup: a compact 1.5-acre municipal park at the end of a residential street, right on Lake Champlain. This is a resident-oriented lake to swim in, run on a sticker and day-pass system, with a buoy-marked swim area and lifeguards on duty from noon to 6 pm daily between June 15 and late August.

If you qualify for access, it is a genuinely easy place to swim. The beach has a playground, a bathhouse, and staff on site through the day, so families can settle in without much fuss. One quirk worth knowing: the town's own rules warn swimmers to stay out of the clay patches on the lake bottom near the swim area, which can get slick and cloud the water when stirred up.

Stoughton Pond Recreation Area is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers day-use site on a small impoundment of the North Branch Black River near Perkinsville, in the rolling hills of Windsor County, Vermont. It has an official roped-off swim beach, which makes it a dependable swimming hole backed up by picnic areas, fishing, and a small-boat launch.

The beach itself is sandy and shallow, the kind of place to swim that works for all abilities, and rangers even run nature programs here in summer. The water is generally clear in dry stretches, though it can cloud up after runoff, and there is no lifeguard on duty, so keep an eye on your own crew.

Treasure Island is Thetford's town beach on 462-acre Lake Fairlee, and despite the name it is not actually an island, just a small sand beach on a peninsula the town has owned since 1972. As a family swimming hole it is hard to argue with: the sandy entry is shallow and gently sloping, reviewers call it clean and family-friendly, and a certified lifeguard is on duty most hours the beach is open.

The beach itself is small, so it can feel crowded on busy summer days. The 11.5-acre property has both sunny and shaded areas, plus kayak, canoe, and pedal-boat rentals and a pickleball court if the kids need a break from the water.

Burton Island State Park is a 253-acre, car-free island in Lake Champlain, and swimming here works differently than at most places to swim. There is no single formal beach; you slip in directly off the rocky, shale-lined shoreline at multiple points, and campers report water access within about 300 feet of most sites. Water shoes are strongly recommended.

The island's south end catches more wind and waves, which campers say their kids love for wave play, while the northern coves of shale and pebbly muck stay calmer for little ones. Getting there is half the experience: you park on the mainland at Kamp Kill Kare State Park and ride a short passenger ferry over. No lifeguards anywhere, so swimming is unsupervised.

Elmore State Park's day use beach is the kind of lake swimming Vermont does best: a sandy, gently sloping beach on 219-acre Lake Elmore, anchored by a beach house the CCC built in the 1930s. Visitors describe the water as cold and clear over a clean sandy bottom, and it reportedly warms past 70 degrees by August.

A 5 horsepower limit on boat motors keeps the lake quiet, so swimmers and paddlers mostly have the water to themselves. Sitting at the base of Elmore Mountain about 13 miles from Stowe, the beach comes with real mountain views, and it is a deservedly popular family swimming hole.

Union Village Dam Recreation Area is an Army Corps flood-control site in East Thetford with a genuinely nice perk: a designated sandy swimming beach on the Ompompanoosuc River. You reach it via a covered bridge near Academy Road, and the developed grounds spread shaded and open lawn along the river for picnicking between swims.

It is a managed river swimming hole marked swim at your own risk, with no lifeguard implied, and pets are barred from the beach itself. Trout fishing and over a mile of trails round out the day.

Southwest Cove hides on the western side of Lake Willoughby's narrow south end, tucked beneath the glacially carved cliffs of Mount Pisgah and Mount Hor, the pair that earns this lake its constant comparisons to a Norwegian fjord. It is a secluded swimming hole inside Willoughby State Forest, a small quiet beach where the tree line runs right down to the water, and it has been used as a clothing-optional spot for decades.

Visitors consistently describe the water as clear and clean, with summer temperatures reported around 64 degrees, so expect a bracing swim even in July. The main basin of Willoughby is one of the deepest lakes in New England at over 300 feet, but the cove margins where people actually swim stay shallow near shore, reportedly around two and a half feet for a good distance out.

Fairlee Town Beach is the town-run swimming hole on Lake Morey, a lifeguarded summer beach with swim lessons and a beach-pass system going back years. The lake typically runs clear on settled summer days, and in winter it flips identities to host one of the longest maintained ice-skating trails in the country.

The big catch: per the town's current posting, the beach is open to Fairlee residents and taxpayers only, with a paid annual pass and a small, permit-checked parking lot. The lake also has documented cyanobacteria monitoring, and the town posts the beach closed when blooms turn up near the swim area.

This stretch of the White River through South Royalton is classic informal Vermont river swimming: shallow rocky shoreline and pools trading off with swifter current, reached from roadside pull-offs along Route 14 where the road hugs the river. Calmer water forms away from the bridge pilings, and low summer flow exposes bedrock for lounging at spots like Pinch Rock a few miles south.

It is less one single swimming hole than a corridor of them: Paine's Beach about a half mile north has a sandy shoreline that a regional guide calls ideal for little kids, while the Chelsea Street bridge area demands real respect. Local news has warned that the current here can sweep an adult off their feet, so pick your spot carefully.