My new favorite vacation rule

The last three weekend trips I went on I established a new tradition: find the best vintage shop and spend an afternoon getting lost in it! Vintage shopping is kind of new to me, though, and it’s taken some time to figure out where the best shops are. Here are my strategies.

While I usually don’t advocate that you judge a book by its cover, I’ve had the best luck judging vintage stores by their pictures on Google or Yelp. As a basic rule, the store with the most racks of clothing in it is usually the gold mine. I do read reviews to get a sense of pricing as well. Finally, I look for stores with menswear. I’m quite tall and vintage women’s clothing rarely fits me. But vintage menswear is a hit! Moving over to the men’s section is how I found this Levi’s jean jacket:

And this cute tee:

I rest my case!

Some recent favorite shops include Barn Owl Vintage (Seattle, WA), Shop Velour (Oregon wine country), and Ransack (Oceanside, CA).

If you have a goldmine vintage store in your town (or tips for finding them) I would love to hear! It’s so fun to bring home secondhand souvenirs that you can’t find at the mall!