The World’s Longest Yard Sale Is This Week

Every August, a quiet country road transforms into a bustling trail of attic knickknacks—a 690-mile-long yard sale.

U.S. Route 127 is a modest two lane highway snaking through Kentucky’s rural backcountry. You can drive miles on it without ever seeing another car. But for four days each year, the highway can clog with bumper-to-bumper traffic. It becomes host to the super bowl of scavenging, a massive rummage-fest that stretches across six states from Gadsden, Alabama to Addison, Michigan.

Welcome to the World’s Longest Yard Sale.

The annual sale was started in 1987 to peel drivers off the main drag and onto Tennessee and Kentucky’s scenic back roads. Now in its 26th year, it attracts hundreds of thousands of shoppers, pickers, and junkyard anthropologists. You can find just about anything there: Antiques and Americana, bargains and bric-a-brac, trinkets, treasures, and second-hand souvenirs.

And did we mention all the fried dough?

If you’re not interested in the six state shopping spree, the drive is still worth it. The sale’s southern end glides along the Lookout Mountain Parkway, rated one of the most scenic rural roads in the United States.

So if you have a hankering for a multi-state flea market or are just hungry for a weekend road trip, check out the World’s Largest Yard Sale this week. It officially starts Thursday, August 1, and runs until Sunday.