Incidentally, a google search actually turns up a previous straightdope thread as the first result but that was 3 and half years ago and didn’t really help.
Anyway, not exactly for a “move” since I’ve been in Berlin now 6 years, but my folks are putting the house (Long Island, NY) on the market and so I’m essentially losing my childhood storage space which means I’m effectively moving to some degree. It’s not a lot of stuff for a typical move, and the actual amount of stuff will greatly depend on cost.
For the most liberal estimate of stuff I wish to ship over to my Berlin apartment I would say a maximum of 2 large boxes (mostly books, some other random items), 3 African hand drums (the largest is a djembe about 2’ tall, the others less than half the size), bike (very optional, but I’ll include it here), a desktop computer (no monitor, just the tower), and an audio cassette tape case with about 100 cassettes (my own recordings in case you’re wondering why they would have any value).
Nothing is time-sensitive. If I could stick it on the corner of a ship that would take months to arrive, that would be fine, as long as I can be sure the stuff actually gets there.
Is there any reasonably cheap way to do this? It’s very difficult to get any good information out of google on this. Most websites seems to want to take my info and get back to me with a quote, rather than provide standard rates on the site.
Would the airline I’m flying on possibly ship items as freight on my flight?
When I moved from the States to Australia, I took what I absolutely had to have on the plane as checked/carryon luggage - clothing and my computer, pretty much. Everything else I sent via Sea Mail. It was quite a bit, and I’ve forgotten how much it cost, but it was far cheaper than the alternative airmail. (If I recall correctly, at some levels of air mail it would have been cheaper to fly myself and carry the stuff as above).
It did take a couple of months, but everything arrived safely, delivered to a country post office where I picked them up.
Grab a scale, go to the post office website, and look at your options. I can assure you that sending things by sea is a viable, if slow, method. It’s also a good method to prune the amount of stuff that you have around; putting a dollar value on having it, vice throwing it away or donating it, really lets you know how much value a given thing has for you.
What you need is a freight forwarder. They can arrange for your belongings to be picked up and added to a container with other freight and shipped overseas. It doesn’t sound as if you have anything hazardous, so the cost would be based mostly on volume. If anything is especially heavy for its size, weight could also be a factor.
When I moved from Alaska to New Hampshire, I used palletized shipping. All your stuff has to be boxed for shipping, and they stack it on a pallet, band it, cover it in a heavy plastic bag and shrink wrap it. It is easily moved by forklift from truck to ship and back to truck for delivery to your door.
Currently on Long Island in New York (Merrick to be specific). The stuff needs to go to Berlin, Germany. How do I find a freight forwarder? Any idea how much I should expect to pay?
I don’t think I would have nearly enough stuff to warrant a whole pallet. But if I could somehow get a corner of someone else’s pallet, that would be ideal. Any idea how I might arrange that?
At any rate, that is how I did it when I moved from the USA to the UK a couple of years ago. I had a lot more to send than you however, and one thing I discovered (from that site) is that small volumes (it mainly goes by volume) cost a lot more, proportionately, than large ones. IIRC it cost me little more to send 60 file boxes (filling two pallets) than it would have to send just two or three. Also, I packed up my own stuff and drove it to the warehouse in a U-Haul. If I had had the company pick it up from my home, that would have cost me almost as much again as it cost to ship from Los Angeles to London. At the other end, I did pay someone to pick the stuff up at the warehouse, and that was also a significant extra cost. Actually sending on the ship, though, was a good bit cheaper than I wold have expected. The economics of the whole thing are not terribly intuitive.
I live on the other side of the other pond, so I can’t point to anyone specifically, but you could start with some place like this.
Since it’s just a one-time, not that large of a move, then a service like this can take the hassle out of it. They deal with all the freight companies, so they can give a quick quote.
I don’t know these guys, so it’s not a recommendation for them specifically.
There are lots of freight forwarders in the NY/NJ area. And lots of companies who deal in less than container load consolidation. I don’t know that it’s kosher for me to give you the contact info for the freight forwarder I worked for.
Can a guest send a private message? If so, you can send one to me and I’ll respond with the info.
I’m sure that it’s possible to send old-fashioned trunks overseas. But given that the shipping business is set up for transporting pallets and containers, it would be simpler to palletize the load.
Think hard about whether these items are worth shipping.
A 6-year-old desktop computer? No, obsolete, donate it for the tax write-off.
A bike? They sell bikes in Berlin, too. Unless it has sentimental value, donate it and buy a new one in Berlin.
Audio cassettes? Send them to a service that transfers them to digital, and will then mail (or email) you the contents. There should be lots of such services in the NYC area. Like CostCo, for one.
Take this opportunity to evaluate your stuff, and see what you really need to keep.
Message sent, though as I mentioned in the message, I’m most likely gonna try and deal with the stuff I really want to transport by checking a 2nd bag on my flight and just get rid of the rest.
(sidenote: I’m incredibly pissed though because I booked the flight through American Airlines, but it’s actually an Air Berlin flight. Price of a 2nd checked bag with: AA=60, AB=198!! WTF??)
Well the desktop would actually be newly built by my computer genius friend. The question is, do I ask him to go ahead and build it for me. The bike, yeah, I have one in Berlin already, but it’s on it’s last wheel. I have my BIL’s much much better one here in NY for free, but no, not necessary. The audio cassettes, my plan is to digitize them myself. I haven’t looked into prices, but we’re talking about 900 hours here.
I’ve been hearing about these M-bags but man, they don’t go out of their way to make pricing transparent. I first clicked the link “downloadable pricing file”, which downloads a spreadsheet that’s basically 3 x 10. Why this needed to be a separate file to be downloaded as opposed to simply displayed right there on the page I have no idea. But here’s that very helpful info:
Price Group Weight Not Over 11 lbs Additional Per Lb.
1 36.85 3.35
2 34.1 3.1
3 66 6
4 53.9 4.9
5 43.45 3.95
6 63.25 5.75
7 54.45 4.95
8 52.25 4.75
9 51.15 4.65
Notice the complete lack of information as to what a “price group” is?
But some googling eventually got me here. And about 2/3 down that page of dizzying numbers and charts I see the data that corresponds to the spreadsheet under “Airmail M-bag Prices”. And I see the “price group” corresponds to the specific country, and thus Germany is thus 3… or 16… or 4… which through the dizzying process of scrolling up and down I’ve determined has something to do with different categories (e.g. Global Express Guaranteed, Priority Express International, etc.). But OK, scroll back up to that first M-bag pricing spreadsheet chart thing, and on the way up I see other pricing tables including one labeled “International Surface Air Lift (ISAL) M-Bag—ISC Drop Shipment” which has considerably cheaper rates than that other one. That’s the one I want!
I’m probably just exhausted and missing some embarrassingly obvious details but I just can’t think straight anymore. I’ll call the PO tomorrow for some clarity. But most likely I’ll just dump my books at a friend’s or a used book store. Less effort, less cost is more and more appealing.