I'm frequently asked where to find the best thrift stores in the world- all over the world. I'd love to help, but I don't even know all the thrift stores in my own city (Jacksonville, Florida is the largest city in the USA landwise. We have dozens of Thrift Stores, and I love it!) I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of all the thrift stores in the world, but I know exactly how to find them!
Here are the tools you can use to find thrift stores and places to hunt for vintage while you're on vacation, too:
Google: Simply google "thrift stores" plus your city's name to yield plenty of results.
Phone Map/GPS: Type in "thrift store" for easy cruising to your nearest stop.
Yelp.com: search for "Thrift Stores", read reviews to find highly rated ones.
Thethriftshopper.com: Just type the zip code to find thrift stores in the area.
Yardsaletreasuremap.com: map out a yard sale itinerary wherever you are!
Craigslist: Search for yard and estate sales in the city your visiting.
Asking Locals: Ask around, most are willing to share their favorite local thrifts.
Next time your on vacation, use the handy websites above to check out the thrifts in the area. And of course, always keep your eyes peeled for good flea markets and thrift stores as you drive along. That's what I always do!
What aps, websites, or tools do you use to find thrift stores near you or thrift stores when you're on vacation?
I absolutely love technology when it comes to planning thrift shopping experiences!
ReplyDeleteI can sit at home, Google thrift stores 100's of miles away, Google street view the ones I never heard of to see if they are worthy of stopping at, make a list of them all, enter them all into Google Maps to plan the trip out to be able to hit them up in the shortest distance & then one by one, enter them into the GPS in the car.
Personally, I have found Yardsaletreasuremap.com to be no help. It'll point me to places where people are selling a chair & miss totally amazing yard sales.
Kijiji is a good resource, too.
Kijiji - good resource for yard & estate sales.
DeleteI'll have to check out Kijiji- thanks! Now that I think about it with yard sale treasure map...we tried to bike routes to bike to different yard sales and the route took us to some dead end every time. Odd!
DeleteYardsaletreasuremap.com is awful. They list areas as local which are no where near there. For example, I'll click on a local town and find its actually a sale one state over! I wish they would upgrade it, so many sales aren't even listed. Better off using craigslist! XXX Suzanne
DeleteHi, I love your blog! Just wanted to suggest other ways people can search for thrift stores outside the United States...In the UK, thrift stores are usually called "charity shops", and one of the most famous is Oxfam. In Spain, they are "tiendas de segunda mano" and one popular "chain" of these is called Humana. In France, look for "une friperie"...I don't know all the different ways to say "thrift store", but just thought I'd share some more ways to search...
ReplyDeleteI love this! Thanks for the helpful suggestions and kind words :)
DeleteOh yeah...I never thrift without my smartphone. It's my number one resource when it comes to knowing whether something is a good find or not, or pointing me in the right direction of nearby yard sales/estate sales. I can't imagine what people did in the good ol' days of thrifting.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting to get my smart phone! Can't wait to thrift with one, especially for researching finds and determining if it's worth the buy or not.
DeleteI travel a lot for my day job. I can never plan when I'll have time to stop or what town I might be near so I love using the Superpages App while I'm in the car. This is how I use it:
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm on the road I have my Google Maps GPS set to my final destination, but along the way I use my Superpages App. I have Thrift and Antique Stores saved as a favorite and I can see what stores are close by as I'm traveling. It lists them and gives the miles away from my current location. I can then select a store and map to see where it is in relationship to my trip. Then if I decide I want to stop there I navigate to it. The great thing is I can look and decide whithout interfering with my original GPS trip.
Heres a link to find out about it: http://www.superpages.com/mobile/app
Thanks for the detailed tips. Can't wait to get my new phone and try this out.
DeleteThanks for posting this Van, I have often wondered this myself. I hadn't thought of Yelp, but will definitely try this for the next trip.
ReplyDeleteFor my trip to Minnesota, I relied on the group #thriftbreak over on Twitter to give me ideas on the best thrifts.
I love using social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc. to find the best local thrifts, good call :) !
DeleteThank goodness for the Internet...or we'd still be using the yellow pages! LOL!
ReplyDelete-pamela ;)
Indeed!
DeleteMy favorite, hands down, is talking to locals. That's where I weed out my internet search results from the true gems and thrifty nuggets. Every time. :D
ReplyDeleteChantal from ThriftTrick.com
Never fails :D
DeleteGreat resources; I don't have much luck searching for places when I'm on the road so I try to think about where I'll be shopping before I leave home. Another resource is social media -- for instance, the groups on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
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