Australia Gets Thrifty On The Garage Sale Trail

One man’s trash is another treasure, except in Australia, where scavenging for secondhand goods is set to be a new national holiday. Now in its third year with nearly over 8,200 sales registered, the Garage Sale Trail encourages Australians to host and attend garage sales held simultaneously one day a year and they’ve made an interactive ‘hyper local’ map to go with it.

With just a few clicks, it’s possible to do a customized search based on region, interest, and vendor. Each listing includes a list of what’s offered at each stop, the sale hours and the number of items and their total estimated value. If bric-a-brac is your thing, this is a dream come true.

What started out as a street festival in Bondi Beach in Sydney has turned into a national phenomenon. The festival collaborates with local city councils and large companies to promote the garage sales and the website invites artists to display their wares and organizations to use this as a opportunity as a fundraiser. The pocket cash is a great incentive to open up shop, but more importantly, it spares a lot of things lying around from an unceremonious burial in a landfill and keeps money circling in the local economy. Garage sales are also a no-brainer to get people involved their local communities, or as Garage Sale Trail calls it, “using the Internet to get people off the Internet.”