About Julia Purdy
I’m a Vermont native who lived “away” for many years, returning to my roots in central
Vermont in 2002. In the interval I earned an M.A. in English and taught at the college level
for five years. I now make my home in a small valley town wedged between low ridges at the
edge of the Green Mountain National Forest. Having lived on both coasts and visited most of
the U.S.—including six cross-country moves, as well as spending extended time in England and
Italy, I’m now home, but with an enriched perspective on this place called Vermont.
My first job back here was a front-line position with the Rochester Ranger District of the Green
Mountain National Forest, followed directly by two seasons as a Park Ranger in Vermont's
only national park, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock.
These were followed by work as a guide at the Billings Farm & Museum and then as education
coordinator at the Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth Notch, where my mother's relations
had at one time operated a tea room and antique shop.
In these positions I discovered the field of “interp” and realized that this was what I wanted to do
in life. I not only plunged into the study of topics in local history, forestry, and culture, but I got
to see tourism from the other side of the counter. Comparing visitors’ experience with my own,
I developed ways of making the tour or the demonstration relevant and interesting. Through
my travel consulting business, Laughin’ Otter Travel etc., I’ve transferred this passion to travel
writing from an insider’s perspective. Personally speaking, I love nothing better than to get out
and about, rambling the hills or keeping track of town goings-on, always with the thought of
sharing what I discover with that potential visitor . . . from the stories embedded in our hills to
Vermonters’ surprising knack for reinventing themselves to keep pace with—or even ahead of—
the times.
