When the heat of the summer arrives, most people’s thoughts turn to taking some sort of family vacation; but with economic progress currently frozen, a lot of people don’t have the necessary funds for extended trips.

If you find yourself with limited funds, or just not a lot of time to get away, the Jackson County Tourism Development Council has come with an interesting alternative to extended vacations.

The group has created a Jackson County Antiques Trail Brochure that outlines 11 different stops around the county.

"The idea is for it to be a day trip, but that really just depends on the type of antiquer a person is," said Hasco Craver, council chairman.

"If you like to spend time really browsing in each of the shops, you could definitely spend more than a day visiting all of the locations."

The tour includes several stops in Braselton, Hoschton, Jefferson, Commerce and one in Maysville. Several of the outlined shops include Hometown Treasures in Jefferson, Our Town Antiques in Commerce and Countryside Antiques in Braselton.

The tourism council settled on an antiques trail brochure because it was one of the few unifying tourist attractions.

"The tourism council’s members are from all over the county, so we wanted a product that we could sell together," said Craver. "And as we took a closer look, we realized that we have a lot of antique stores all over the county."

Although the primary focus of the brochures is antiques, the council hopes the trail will help to boost the overall economy in Jackson County.

"The neat part about this is that most of the antique stores are located in our historic downtowns - which is where the highest concentration of commercial activity generally occurs," Craver said. "So while visitors are browsing in one of the antique stores, they might see another shop they’d like to visit or a restaurant where they might to grab some lunch. Bringing visitors to our towns can only benefit all of us."

The brochures are available at all participating locations, some county offices, area hotels, the information booth at the Tanger Outlet Mall and several state welcome centers.

They are also available on the Jackson County Tourism Development Council’s Web site at www.jacksoncountyga.
com/Tourism-Council.376.0.html.