Travel Plans that Include Shopping

December 20, 2005 8:21 AM

So my wife and I are headed from Boston to Annapolis this Thursday for the holidays. We’ll be returning north on Tuesday. Since finding out that I am 36th on the preorder list at my EB for an Xbox 360 I reserved in August, I’d like to spend these travel days trying maximize my chances at locating a system in a store so I would have it for the week off I get at the end of December.

I’d like to get a list of all Best Buys, Circuit Cities, Targets, Wal-Marts, and any other such store that we may encounter on our way. What is the best way to do that? Are there some routes that would maximize encountering these stores without costing too much drive-time?

Any help or ideas on how to plan this are appreciated. We don’t normally have access to a car, so I want to take as much advantage of this situation as possible. Ideally a map with a key listing the location of stores and their phone numbers would be best. We'd be armed with cellphone, possibly a laptop, a car, and a boatload of my wife's patience.

posted by robocop is bleeding to travel & transportation (5 comments total)

Keep your eyes on Kotaku.com, they seem to have the late-breaking news on new shipments. Word is Best Buy is going to have more on the 22nd. As for getting a list of stores, many have "x stores within 50 miles of your location!", but getting a full list or a custom list is nigh impossible. I worked for a realtor who wanted to plot their locations on a map and when I called corporate for a full list they acted like I'd tried to break in. Shrug.

Good luck! (My advice? Save the $$ and get Guitar Hero or a Nintendo DS. But then again, you didn't ask me :) )
posted by GilloD at 8:26 AM on December 20, 2005

From all the press accounts, I believe the chances of your finding an XBox by visiting random stores is close to zero. If you really want one, it does look like they are available via eBay for a couple hundred dollar premium over the list price.
posted by alms at 9:19 AM on December 20, 2005

Yeah, I've looked into eBay and the various online bundles, but can't bring myself to pay more than a hundred bucks over what I've already sunk into the system.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:31 AM on December 20, 2005

Not that it helps, but what you're asking for in paragraph 2 is a question still in need of an answer.
posted by yerfatma at 9:40 AM on December 20, 2005

So Circuit City dot com came through for me this morning, making my quest passe.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:15 AM on December 21, 2005