When you’re out with your RV, exploring cities and small towns, do you like to visit antique shops? There are some incredible places across the country, even across North America, to look through antique shops.
Here’s a list from House Beautiful of the best small towns for antiques in all 50 states. This should keep you busy shopping for a while!
We love poking around antique shops—the history of old items can be fascinating and you usually always learn something. Some stores are like museums.
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On the road, never. At home, never. However, show me an Estate Sale and I’m very interested.
Small treasures and the debris of life.
I’m trying to get rid of old stuff, not collect more.
I probably should open my own antique shop to sell all the old stuff I left behind in store rooms. Ha!
We do visit. Not to buy anything, but to see what all the old stuff we have accumulated at home may be worth!
Sure? Let’s replace the cheap dinette table in our RV with someone else’s old junk. How about some more lamps to fill up our limited counter top then store it when we move on to the next campsite and nearby junk, I mean antique store. Nope. Besides, I hate the smell of all that old used furniture.
If we are in a town for a couple of weeks, sometimes we just browse, but not to purchase!
Kind of like walking through a museum of our childhood homes.
It depends on where in the Country we are visiting. The Midwest is loaded with antique stores that sell great collectables. Not old furniture as many here have experienced. We’re not in to secondhand furniture, clothes and such, just neat old signs, kitchen gadgets, automotive memorabilia, etc.
Answered yes but rarely. That being said, when I do I’m on the lookout for antique American Flyer trains. Once found a very desirable box car for $20.00 that was in better shape than the one I had, sold the worst one for $800.00 and change! I also go to the flea markets and have come home with some good finds. Now I mostly am selling off my very large collection but will never pass up a good buy.
I’m antique enough, don’t need anything else.
We visit antique shops to look for RV related toys. We were inspired to look for these years ago after staying at the Enchanted Trails RV park in NM that had antique trailers on exhibit and RV toys in their office. We now have a cabinet full that we enjoy and a lot of memories of the towns we found them in. They are hard to find and getting pricier.
One friend has a Brier pony herd, so I am always on the lookout. Another friend collects fine china, I found her Christmas gift. One place even had tools !
Interesting article. I love vintage as much as the next person. Unfortunately, collecting no longer fits my full time RV lifestyle. It’s just more stuff!
My wife and I both enjoy antique-ing, as it is referred to. We’ve been in antique shops all across the US and have even hauled furniture in our RV for hundreds of miles home. We now travel in a 45 ft. DP with a 20 ft. enclosed trailer behind and have put stuff in it as well. BTW, we also enjoy flea markets, rummage sales, garage/yard sales, and thrift stores.
Antique Shops !! ?? If there isn’t one around we have no reason to stop. Our house and barn are not TOTALLY full — YET.
We used to stop for antique shops all the time as we had a 2100 sq.ft. two-story 1920 home to furnish and decorate. Since moving to our 1300 sq.ft. ranch retirement home with contemporary decor ten years ago we rarely stop. Even when we do my only purchases now are gifts for others.
Only when SWMBO lets me. Answer should have been rarely!
😆 I learned something new. Thanks, Mike! Have a good night. 😀 –Diane
I don’t have room in my RV or house for more stuff, so if I went to antique stores, I would not be able to resist buying more stuff. So I don’t go!
We stop at museums,that way we won’t purchase anything.
Yes because we have an antiques business so we are always looking.