The store that sells your lost luggage

Everyday, thousands of travellers come to a town in Alabama to sift through lost bags filled with everything from wedding dresses to medieval suits of armour.

If you're among the many millions of travellers boarding a flight in or to the US this holiday season, there's a more-than-99.5% chance you'll be reunited with your checked bag at your destination's baggage claim – or, if it's misplaced, within 90 days through your airline.

But if you're one of the rare few who never sees their suitcase again, it's likely your meticulously packed belongings ended up in Scottsboro, Alabama, and will soon find new homes courtesy of the many treasure-hunting shoppers at Unclaimed Baggage: the nation's only lost-luggage retailer.

Growing up a few hours' drive away in Georgia, I'd heard stories about Unclaimed Baggage – a mystical spot where lost bags, seemingly gone forever, reappear. I knew the company has long-term agreements with all the US's major airlines to purchase baggage (checked and carry on) that goes unspoken for on that fateful 91st day, when, after airline compensation, ownership of your favourite travel outfit, prized accouterments and family heirlooms is officially severed.

The contents of those unclaimed suitcases, if deemed saleable, are then sorted and priced up to 80% off retail before becoming part of the more than 7,000 "new" items on the store's massive 50,000-sq-ft floor each day.

In 2024, around 500 million pieces of luggage were checked onto American flights, with another 2.1 billion bags carried on. Even before factoring in that Unclaimed Baggage also has contracts with bus lines, cargo companies, trains, rental car companies and hotels, I was overwhelmed imagining the volume.

So, I decided to drive to Scottsboro, a town of 16,000 people in Alabama's north-western corner where the Appalachian foothills meet the Tennessee River. I wanted to meet a few of the thousands of visitors who flock here everyday and understand how this unlikely place came to be.

Lost and found

The car park was nearly full at 08:00 on a recent Saturday morning. I pulled into a space between cars with New Mexico and New York licence plates and followed a group of older shoppers shuffling into the sprawling, city-block-sized building. As each entered, their backs straightened, smiles widened under the fluorescent lights and they beelined for the shopping trolleys.

Inside, racks of clothes – divided by category, size and gender – extended out of sight across the store's football field-sized expanse. A cornucopia of other peoples' dresses, shorts, suits, gowns, belts, hats, skirts, scarves, jeans, puffy coats, activewear, T-shirts and silk pyjamas surrounded display cases of rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, watches, sunglasses, perfume and cufflinks. The mezzanine was dedicated to lost phones, headphones, chargers, gaming systems, e-readers, tablets, laptops and cameras. Elsewhere, shelves were stuffed with sneakers, wingtips, boots, pumps, slippers and flip-flops.

Oh, and the brands. Unlike thrift stores, which are filled with items their owners no longer want, Unclaimed Baggage's merchandise comes from travellers who – according to Jennifer Kritner, the company's vice president of retail and company culture – often pack their trendiest belongings for their holiday. Consequently, hunters dug through rows filled with Patagonia, Burberry, Rolex, Apple, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Bulgari items.

Kritner joined me as I wandered through the store. When we found ourselves in front of a wall of wedding dresses, I asked her about the emotions and personal connections associated with the inventory surrounding us.

"We all lose [things] sometimes," said Kritner, who is also director of the company's Reclaimed for Good Foundation, which gives about one-third of incoming items to charitable organisations. "Our goal is to do the best with what comes in… some [items] are sold, some are donated to those in need and some are recycled. But they all receive a second life. The question, really, is: 'What is on the other side of loss?'." She paused. "Being found."

A man and a truck

In April 1970, Doyle Owens, acting on a hunch, borrowed $300 and a Chevy truck and drove from Scottsboro to Washington DC to purchase his first haul of 110 bags from the Continental Trailways bus company. In a video recounting the event, Owens, who passed away in 2016, remembered feeling like The Beverly Hillbillies as he rolled back to Alabama in the overburdened pickup. But after selling out that initial load – spread out on sawhorse tables in a rented house – he was already looking for the next payload. Unclaimed Baggage was born.

Abby Gentry Benson, a lifelong Scottsboro resident, was there for that first truckload. "When they opened the doors, there was a line of my mama and her friends," she told me. "I still have a little jade ring we got that very first day." I asked Gentry Benson, who was searching, as she does every visit, for Chanel perfume, what draws her back. "You don't know what you're gonna get," she said. "I come several times a week – sometimes twice a day. For me, it's like retail therapy."

Owens sold the business to his son Bryan in 1995. It was precipitous timing. The same year, Oprah Winfrey featured Unclaimed Baggage on her show as a "best-kept shopping secret".

It's no longer a secret. More than a million people per year make the pilgrimage to shop here, and Alabama Tourism even lists Unclaimed Baggage among the state's attractions. People come for the valuable, weird and practical items that once held a pride of place in someone else's closet. Like Gentry Benson, they come to test the store's motto: "You never know what you'll find."

Over coffee at the in-store cafe, I asked Sonni Hood, Unclaimed Baggage's senior PR and communications manager, something that had been gnawing at me: "Why aren't there other stores like this?"

"We have contracts with the airlines, but it's really about relationships built over 55 years," Hood said, as a shopper passed with a trolley full of cycling gear. "And with 300 employees, the level of care here is hard to replicate. Every single thing has to be unpacked, untangled, cleaned, researched, professionally appraised and authenticated (we never sell knock offs), and divided into sell, donate or recycle. If it goes online [for sale on our website], it also has to be photographed, described, listed and shipped. We launder 100,000 items per month – it's the largest commercial laundry in the state."

Brand name archaeologists

I followed Hood to the middle of the store where a crowd had gathered for one of the daily "Unclaimed Baggage Experiences", when a lucky shopper gets to unpack a fresh case. (The bags are inspected ahead of time so there's nothing illegal or naughty inside.) Donning blue latex gloves, a woman from Georgia pulled out items while a growing gaggle of onlookers, each with laden carts, chimed in about which items should be sold, donated or recycled based on their level of wear and tear, and about the type of traveller they represented. "Oohs" and "aahs" accompanied the unveiling of slacks, designer T-shirts, a vintage Pac-Man game and a glass serving platter. The consensus: he was well dressed and quirky.

I then wandered to the onsite Unclaimed Baggage Museum, which opened in 2023 and displays more than 100 of the most unique items uncovered over the years. Among them: a basketball signed by Michael Jordan, Amazonian shrunken heads, a 3,500-year-old Egyptian burial mask and a medieval suit of armour. Over the years, employees have unpacked a 40-carat emerald hidden in a sock (sold for $14,000), a platinum Rolex that retailed for $64,000 (sold for $32,000) and a live rattlesnake (unsold).

It dawned on me there was more happening here than simple consumerism. There's an archaeological aspect. A thrill-of-the-hunt search for the bizarre and unexpected.

"There's no typical shopper here," said Bryan Owens, Unclaimed's owner and CEO. "We have everyone from millionaires to blue-collar workers and we love them all. There's not really a demographic. It's more of a psychographic."

As I walked around the store, testing my own archaeological instincts (my dig unearthed a new-ish Patagonia jacket, 50% off retail), I met Dian H, an Unclaimed regular for decades. After boasting that everything she wore or carried was found here – shirt, shoes, trousers, necklace and Peruvian tapestry bag – she pulled another recent purchase out of her bag: a 28cm Art Deco statue forged in France in 1930 and valued at nearly $2,000. She paid $2.99.

"When I find something like this," Dian said, admiring her treasure, "it reminds me why I love coming here: for the passion of owning something so special for a little while. And look at me. I've got a Peruvian purse. I have a French sculpture. Why would I need to travel?"