Paper maps beat phone apps for yard sale hunting

Used to circle yard sales in the newspaper with a red pen and plot a route on a real map, hitting maybe 6 spots before noon. Now I just pull up apps on my phone and filter by distance, but I notice I skip places that used to be my best finds, like that barn sale outside Harrisburg where I snagged a solid oak table for 15 bucks. The change happened around 2017 when the paper stopped listing sales and everything moved to Facebook groups, but I still print a small list and draw arrows on it when I can. Anyone else feel like the digital picks miss the weird little church basement sales that the old method caught?

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carter.laura19d ago

The Harrisburg 15 dollar oak table story hit me hard. My best find ever was a 1950s Hamilton watch at a church rummage sale in Lancaster, tucked under a box of old Christmas ornaments. I started doing the same thing, printing the Facebook list and drawing my own route with a highlighter. The apps just show you what's closest or what has the most photos, not the weird stuff that happens when you roll up to a place with no pictures. I think the digital ones miss the spontaneity, like when a seller tells you about a neighbor who's also clearing out a garage and they're not online at all. So yeah, I keep a paper list in my glovebox too, and it has not failed me yet.