Updated 06/01/26
The hardest part of planning a family vacation usually isn't picking the destination. It's the quiet worry that you picked wrong - that someone will be bored, that the day will fall apart, that you'll spend the whole trip adding things up. Smugglers' Notch Resort built its summer around taking that worry off the table.
In Jeffersonville, VT Smuggs' has been running full-tilt summer programming for more than thirty years, and the model is refreshingly simple: book the Family Fun Adventure Package and most of what you'd actually want to do is already part of the stay. Pools, the waterparks, the inflatable features at Bootleggers' Basin, guided hikes, evening events on the Village Green, the on-demand shuttle that means you never reload the car - it's bundled, every day, for the whole family.
“It's the vacation where you could do a million things, or you could do nothing if you wanted to,” says Matt McCawley of Smugglers' Notch. “Those things are all part of the package. You don't have to worry about whether you can go to this pool or that pool, or get into the fun zone.”
There's a real financial logic underneath the simplicity, too. The package is priced per booking, not per person, per day. Book a la carte lodging through a rental site and you'll typically pay a per-person daily rate for access to those same amenities, which, McCawley points out, adds up fast once you've got even one adult and one kid heading to the pool every morning.
Mornings at Smuggs' are for getting out - guided hikes, trail time, or dropping the kids at camp while you take the morning at your own speed. Older kids and teens can sign up for the resort's specialty camp (formerly the high adventure camp), which runs a different challenge each day: the obstacle course at ArborTrek, kayaking at Lake Elmore State Park, rock climbing at Bolton. By midday everything shifts toward the water, and evenings pull back together with shows and family activities on the Village Green. No second-guessing, no itinerary to manage.
A few of the marquee experiences sit outside the package - the camps, the zip line, the ninja warrior course, and the professional disc golf - but those are the kinds of add-ons most families expect to pick a la carte anyway.
About that disc golf. Smuggs' is quietly one of the top disc golf destinations anywhere. Its two courses, Brewster Ridge and Fox Run Meadows, have both landed firmly in the top 10 of UDisc's 2026 World's Best Disc Golf Courses, and on the U.S. list they sit at #2 and #3 - behind only Maple Hill in Massachusetts. They're also genuinely different rounds.
Brewster is the wooded one, threading through the resort's cross-country trails. “It's classic Vermont woods,” McCawley says. “There are stone walls, little drainage creeks. It's a pretty course.” Fox Run plays more open, down in Bootleggers' Basin alongside a reservoir with the mountains in view. “Visually, it's a more impactful course.”
If you want to build a trip around the courses, the Disc Golf Play & Stay Package runs several sessions through the season: three nights of lodging, daily breakfast, course access, and use of the pools and hot tubs to ease out the post-round stiffness, starting at $128 per person, per night. You'll head home with a commemorative disc and gift bag, too. Remaining 2026 sessions are June 5-7, June 26-29, September 4-7, and October 16-18. Book by calling 1-800-521-0536.
This summer also brings a bigger Fourth of July than usual. With the country marking America's 250th, Smuggs' is stretching the holiday into a full week of patriotic programming, leaning on the traditions the area already does well - the town parade, the fair at the school - and adding the resort's own spin, with an activity or two each day and decorations around the Village.
“We want to make the Fourth of July a destination, somewhere to come and take part in an authentic Americana celebration,” McCawley says.
One insider note if you're after a calmer week: the stretch right before the Fourth of July is about as quiet as a full-programming summer gets at Smuggs'. “You're going to have just about every program to yourself,” McCawley says - the pools, the hikes, all of it. The lull right after Labor Day, that last week of August into early September when school's back but summer isn't, is the other sweet spot.
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Full details and booking for the Family Fun Adventure Package are at smuggs.com or by calling 1-800-419-4615. However you build your week up there - a million things or a whole lot of nothing - it's all set up and waiting, just for you.
