Acrewd Guide to Thrifting: Bayou Style

To continue with my ongoing series in the Acrewd Guide to Treasure Hunting, I want to go through my most recent trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and tell you how my previous advice of incorporating a buying trip into everyday travel as well as doing my research helped me find some great fashion treasures along the way.

Patrick and I had a wedding to attend in Baton Rouge, and this alone was exciting as it was my first trip to the bayou and I love spending time with my new family. Once we decided to drive instead of fly, I was on Google Maps immediately looking at routes and different cities to hit along the way. I knew we wouldn't have much time so I needed to narrow my search to get the most bang for my buck on our stops. I decided the best prospects between Atlanta and BR would be Auburn, Montgomery, Biloxi and New Orleans. Some of the reasons I chose these are because they:

• Are a relatively larger city
• Could be considered a college town
• Represent a variety of wealth and incomes

These are the factors that I often look at when considering a place to stop and thrift. Antiquing has some additional factors, but I will probably wait until later this year when I make a trip to the antique stores in December to write about those.

Then I took to the Yelp reviews to start narrowing down. Searching simple terms like "thrift stores" or "second hand" in each city brought up exactly what I was looking for. You can use any review board you like but I find that Yelpers have been very accurate in the past I'm pretty loyal :) This helped me narrow it down to a few cities and stores to visit in each, time permitting. It was soon apparent that New Orleans would be the one city I could not cut for several reasons.

1. I've never been there! Going on a buying trip has its purpose but you should never forget that it should also be fun. The reason I enjoy hunting for unique fashion items is because they are literally EVERYWHERE and if you're searching the vastness of everywhere, well then you might as well enjoy the ride.
2. Many of the stores had ratings - and good ones. It's one thing if you love to shop at a place and want to tell others about it. It's a whole other thing if you take the time to type up reviews about it. And there were plenty. This shows that the stores must be pretty damn good and that this is a community that thrifts.
3. The best rated stores were concentrated within a short distance. This was especially important as we had to keep on schedule to make the rehearsal dinner in time. Also great if you want to park one place and be able to walk to many shops / sight see / eat.

In the end, we were only able to make it to NoLa and it was well worth it. We spent a few hours in the city stretching our legs and shopping Magazine Street, snapping pictures and having a quick lunch at Byblos. The best shops, IMO, were definitely the Bloomin' Deals Junior League shop and the fabulous, wish I could shop here every day, Buffalo Exchange. I scored an awesome dress from Tibi, some new Stuart Weitzman perforated leather heels, and a gorgeous wool holiday dress from Banana Republic. I'll be posting new items to shopacrewd.com soon, so make sure to stay tuned and sign up for our mailing list to get the newest updates!

Here are some pictures from the trip, including some favorite items I found: