Are you ready to experience something sweet?
The Virginia Maple Syrup Trail highlights pure maple syrup in the central Appalachia area where the delicacy can be consistently made. Maple syrup starts by collecting sugar water, or “sap”, from maple trees in late winter and early spring during the freezing and thawing cycle. That sugar water is then boiled down to make delicious syrup. The syrup producers’ sugar camps remain up year-round even outside of their busy processing season, and you can hear their stories, view their equipment and enjoy their tasty syrup.
Your passport begins in Highland County, home to the official maple festival of Virginia. You’re invited to visit eight sugar camps in Highland County throughout the year, excluding the busy Maple Festival weeks and weekends in March, to learn the techniques of how maple syrup is uniquely produced at each one. Call ahead to the sugar camps, schedule a visit for a tour, taste their syrup and get a stamp on your physical passport. Passports are available at the sugar camps themselves upon arrival, at local businesses or at select Virginia Welcome Centers. After all eight camps are visited, there will be a prize, but the real incentive is to have more one-on-one interaction with the farmers who run the camps. Discover all that happens even beyond maple syrup on these these farms and in the scenic, unspoiled mountains of Highland County. If you want to know where your food comes from, this a great family agritourism opportunity!
Virginia’s Sweet Spot, Highland County, is waiting for you to explore!
- Pick up your passport
- Schedule your tour
- Visit a sugar camp
- Get a custom stamp
- Collect ALL 8 stamps
- Get your free gifts
Our Sugar Camps
Puffenbarger’s Sugar Orchard
In the heart of the Blue Grass Valley, the Puffenbarger’s Sugar Orchard is a multigenerational family owned business that produces “sugar water” in to sweet maple syrup! –Read More–
Laurel Fork Sapsuckers
Laurel Fork Sapsuckers is a family-run sugar camp that you can join for high elevation views of western Highland County and a tour of the maple syrup making process. They have used materials from their farm, as well as equipment from the county that folks used over 100 years ago. –Read More–
Mill Gap Farms
Mill Gap Farms is the only producer in Virginia who is certified Organic by the USDA. They utilize the latest technology from Vermont and Quebec to produce their maple syrup. –Read More–
Duff’s Sugar House
Duff’s Sugar House is a small family-run, old-time sugar house where the trees are still “opened” by hand and the sugar water collected in buckets. –Read More–
Back Creek Farms
The Lowry family has been making maple syrup since before the Civil War, and they still use the open pan passed down from Pat Lowry’s great-grandmother. –Read More–
Sugar Tree Country Store & Sugar House
They utilize reverse osmosis techniques for making syrup but value the importance of old-fashioned family time to bring you a full range of maple products. –Read More–
Bruce’s Syrup and Candies
Advancing beyond just old-fashioned buckets and kettles in the early days, they now utilize a vacuum system, reverse osmosis, state-of-the-art evaporator, filtration and bottling equipment. –Read More–
Tonoloway Farm
Virginia’s only commercial producer of black walnut syrup. Visitors are welcome to taste the unique flavors of walnut syrup, hickory syrup, as well as classic wood-fired maple syrup. –Read More–
Upcoming Events
*** CANCELLED *** Highland County Maple Festival: March 13-14 & 20-21, 2021
January 15, 2021: The Highland County Chamber of Commerce has made the decision to officially cancel both weekends of the 2021 Highland County Maple Festival, originally scheduled for March 13-14 and 20-21, 2021. This announcement is made with heavy hearts after months of deliberation, input, and research for how to safely hold the event given the current state guidelines concerning the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.
For full details, please visit www.highlandcounty.org/maple-festival/.
Here is information on the Maple Festival during a typical year: Held annually during the second and third weekends in March. For over 60 years, visitors have been drawn to Highland County to tour real maple sugar camps for a cultural and culinary adventure! In 1999, The Library of Congress designated The Highland County Maple Festival a “Local Legacy.” In 2014, the Governor of Virginia signed a bill into law designating the festival as the “official maple festival of Virginia.” Each year, tens of thousands of visitors are drawn to this unspoiled, rural region of Virginia to celebrate the “opening” of the trees and observe the process of maple syrup-making. Sugar camp tours provide a unique and educational experience that portrays a rapidly vanishing way of American life. *Please note that due to high volumes of people and the busy time to produce syrup, passports will be unable to be stamped from March 8 – 21, 2021. Personal individual tours will not be available, as sugar camps are open to the general public on weekends during that timeframe.* Please click now for further details.
Stay, Play & Save
Check back here for updates for sponsor discounts in the future!
Looking for places to stay and dine between tours?
Visit the Highland County Chamber of Commerce Member Directory BY CLICKING HERE!
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Testimonials
Thank you for giving our family the most memorable vacation we have ever had. Your beautiful vistas are only matched by the kindness of your residents. We hope to visit you again in each season in the years to come. You truly have something special here! We loved being able to complete the Maple Syrup Trail. Each person really went out of their way to show us their craft.
My family loves the outdoors, and Highland County checks all the boxes for us. We love to visit and explore new things so when we heard about the VA Maple Syrup Trail we were pumped!