There’s a particular kind of shopping experience that’s gone the way of rotary phones and handwritten letters, and most of us didn’t even notice it disappearing.
Fairhope, Alabama has somehow preserved this endangered species of retail, creating a shopping district that feels like it was transported from an era when people actually enjoyed browsing stores instead of treating it like a necessary evil between Amazon deliveries.
Located on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, this town has turned its downtown into a shopping destination that makes you remember why people used to spend Saturday afternoons wandering through stores without a specific purchase in mind.
The shopping experience here starts before you even enter a store, with window displays that are actually designed to entice rather than just showcase whatever corporate headquarters shipped to every location nationwide…