A Vermont town has temporarily shut down a picturesque country road after disrespectful influencers kept invading the area for fall photos

• A "leaf-peeping" hotspot is temporarily closed to the public at the height of fall foliage season, The Boston Globe reports.
• Local residents say they're fed up with visitors and influencers congesting the road to take pictures.
• Influencers have reportedly been caught trespassing, leaving trash, and even urinating behind shrubbery.

As autumn crests, a small town in Vermont has shut down a quaint road for three weeks in response to unruly influencers flocking the area for fall content.

According to The Boston Globe, locals of Pomfret have become increasingly fed up that Cloudland Road (on which the highly photographable Sleepy Hollow Farm is located) gets clogged with cars, tour buses, and drones flying overhead every season. The outlet reported that some influencers have even trespassed onto private property, leaving trash, and urinating behind shrubbery, while trying to capture the perfect images.

The selectboard of Pomfret voted last month to close the road at the height of foilage season from September 23 to October 15, The Globe reported. Sheriffs will man checkpoints at the bottom and top of the road, ensuring only residents can enter. 

 

While tourists have long flocked to Cloudland Road, residents told the Globe that they noticed something of a tone shift five years ago when influencers started arriving with an air of entitlement and disrespect.

"We call them Tik Tockers," Mike Doten, who owns an 80-acre farm on Cloudland Road, told the outlet, noting he once saw a woman erect a portable changing booth on-site to take selfies in different outfits. "The Tik Tockers started flocking here and they kept growing, year after year."

Doten said it can pose a safety hazard, like potentially impeding a firetruck or ambulance from reaching the area in the event of an emergency.

To his and the locals' delight, some influencers have heeded their cries. New England-based influencer Kiel James Patrick, who has over one million Instagram followers, told The Globe he'd removed posts featuring Sleepy Hollow Farm to respect the privacy of residents. 

 

Vermont has become synonymous with fall on social media, which is often punctuated by photos of pumpkin-flavored drinks and candles, cozy clothing, and pumpkin and apple picking outings.

Caitlin Covington, the face of the "Christian Girl Autumn" meme, makes annual pilgrimages to the state, The New York Times reported in 2022, and was paid tens of thousands of dollars last year for sponsored content filmed in front of the iconic foilage.