Vermont

In 1860, Vermont gave Abraham Lincoln a bigger victory margin than any other state in the country. Then it backed it up. Over 33,000 Vermonters served in the Civil War, and more than 5,200 of them died. That's remarkable for a state so small its entire population could fit inside a midsize city.

Abenaki people had lived in this region for thousands of years before European settlers arrived. French explorer Samuel de Champlain mapped the area in 1609. By the 1760s, settlers with land grants from New Hampshire were clashing with New York, which also claimed the territory.

Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys militia settled the argument their own way. On May 10, 1775, they stormed Fort Ticonderoga and captured it from the British without firing a shot. The cannons they seized were hauled to Boston and helped force the British out of the city.

In 1777, Vermont declared independence and became its own country. Its constitution was the first in North America to ban slavery and the first to let all men vote whether they owned property or not. Vermont stayed independent for 14 years before joining the U.S. as the 14th state in 1791.

The ban on slavery wasn't as clean as it sounds. The law only freed enslaved men at 21 and women at 18, and some slaveholders ignored it for years. Still, Vermont became a center of the abolitionist movement, and many Vermonters helped enslaved people escape to Canada through the Underground Railroad.

Hike the Long Trail (the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the country), visit the Shelburne Museum's collection of Americana, and tour a working sugarhouse during maple season. Ben & Jerry's factory in Waterbury offers tours and tastings, and the tiny state capital of Montpelier is the only one in America without a McDonald's.