When traveling, I love to visit local yarn shops along the way. Usually, I only focused on those stores around my final destination.
Locating these stores used to take a little due diligence to map your trip with the help of Google. But things have changed......
Now these stores and stores in route are easy to plan using the new Ravelry.com Road Trip Planner, enabling you to plan your trips around yarn shops. This tool gives you all the yarn shops that you pass within an acceptable amount of miles (you determine how far you want to stray from your route.....1 mile, 5 miles, etc.). I love traveling by car but this gives a whole new spin to the road less travelled.....especially if your are on a Yarn-y/Fiber trip to begin with. The Road Trip Planner gives store address, phone, store hours and web site.
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If getting onto Ravelry isn't easy enough..........
There is also an app for your smartphone called Knitmap - Yarn Store Finder available Android and iPhone. Knitmap is destination driven and community supported listing of yarn store around the world.....over 5400 stores. Search by city, county, district, state or just stores nearby. Detailed store information is mapped and lists address, phone, directions, store hours and web site. It also is loaded with reviews by others and you can review yourself. Quite a handy tool.
Traveling to see the changing autumn colors, going apple picking or a trip to an out of the way pumpkin patch is a great time to try out these resources to add a little fiber to your jaunt.
Both give similar information about a specific yarn shop. The difference is that Road Trip Planner gives you stops along the way, while Knitmap give you details for a specific location/destination. Try them both. Then take advantage of any upcoming weekends and holidays to make the most of your adventures with some yarn shop side trips.
Until next time........
Happy Knitting!