When Laura Seymour sips coffee on her porch in rural Vermont this time of year, she’s treated to rolling hills of red, orange and yellow. And, increasingly, cars. Lots of them.
This crowding from visiting leaf-peepers in Huntington, Vt., has gotten so irksome, the 56-year-old and her husband decamped for the French countryside for the first two weeks of October, around the time colors often peak in the New England state.
“I hate to say it, but we probably picked this time to actually avoid some of the traffic on our road,” Seymour, a speech-language pathologist, said by phone from France.
Crowding has become a testy issue around Vermont, where small towns have taken aim at intrusive leaf-peeping visitors by shutting down scenic roads and ramping up parking enforcement—even towing vehicles. General stores sell figurines that satirize social media-obsessed tourists.
Vermont’s economy relies on tourism, and many residents say they welcome the roughly 2.5 million visitors who come for the idyllic autumnal vistas. Some point out it’s a small percentage of visitors who overstep. But a growing number of residents say influencer culture is fueling bad behavior.