Suggestions on moving cross-country!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey gang,

I’m moving back East from California in the next oh, 30-60 days, and I’m looking for advice.

When I moved out here from Rhode Island, I packed my car with what it would carry, and drove off into the sunset. I then had my parents ship me stuff once I got out here. Now that I’m heading back, and bringing virtee, that doubles the amount of stuff. As it is, my stuff alone won’t fit in my car, let alone my stuff, his stuff, and the two of us.

I drive a 1995 VW Golf. General consensus is that hitching a trailer to it and driving cross-country is a Bad Idea, as it’d put too much wear and tear on my poor transmission. I tend to agree. I’ve looked into UHaul’s prices, and they want almost $3000 for their smallest truck plus a dolly to tow my car behind. Not gonna happen. A small trailer would cost about $305, but I’m not sure if my car would be ok with that. It’s in good shape, but it’s got over 100K miles on it, and has already been cross-country once this year. It needs to last me a lot longer.

It looks like we’re going to end up packing up a lot of our stuff and shipping it ahead of us, but I’m afraid that will get expensive too. The idea here is to keep costs low, and get back safely, obviously.

So anyone have any sage advice? Most of our stuff would be clothing and articles like that; I’ve left all my furniture back East, and virtee doesn’t plan to bring any of his unless we find a viable trailer idea that’ll work.

I so hate moving… ugh!

2

Well, when I moved from New York to Mass, I rented a big U-Haul and took most of my stuff. I left all my furniture with the roommies, sold a ton of books on ebay, and threw out a lot of crap.

If I was in your situation, I’d try to mail stuff back here. If your parents or someone won’t be too put out by accepting and storing packages, that might work. Would be less expensive (and less annoying) than taking it all with you. :slight_smile:

Good luck with the move! :slight_smile:

Rose

3

Rather than throw money away with a U-Haul, shop for and purchase a pick-up truck with a tow hitch. Load all your goods in the back of the truck and the car.

When you get to your destination, sell the truck. If you do your homework, there is potential to make money on the deal.

4

I meant by the way, that you could tow your car behind the truck. If it is a standard transmission, all you’ll need is a towbar. If it is an automatic, you’ll need a tow dolly to hoist the drive wheels off the ground.

5

Having made major moves several times I feel that I must offer up some advice.

If it dosen’t have sentimental value sell it. Try to get the most out of it by trying online auctions first. Try consigning the furniture to a second hand store or an auction house. Finally have a yard sale or give to friends.
Sell one of your cars if you have two of them. Mail what you can back east. Take as little in the car with you as you can.

Most of what you own can easily be replaced with a suprising small amount of cash. Just do the reverse when you get back. Go to auctions, buy stuff on ebay, go to
second hand stores. You will basically be trading second hand stuff from California with second hand stuff from your new home.

Cash is the easy to transport. The hassle of packing, transporting, and unpacking all of your worldly goods isn’t worth the effort. Just image how people who get stricken by floods and earthquakes feel after loosing all of their stuff, they manage to get on with their lives and so will you (but with the cash!).

Good Luck!

6

When I relocated from Los Angeles to Atlanta I shipped my stuff through a company I found on the internet. Start surfing if this is something you want to consider. I only had 10 days to make all the arrangements including looking for a place to live in Atlanta, so I looked for cheap n quick.

Start looking at your stuff. Do you REALLY need to pack it up? Household stuff multiplies when you aren’t looking like dust bunnies.

Sounds like you are looking to make the move during the summer months, loading up your car isn’t such a great idea. It will be a taxing enough drive in itself. Since I moved, I’ve made the drive back to L.A. a few times to pick up my dog … I can’t tell you how many UHAULS I’ve passed broken down on the side of the road.

I shipped my car as well since there was no way it could handle the trip.

The experience was enough for me to say “I am NEVER moving again!”

7

I set out from San Francisco to the Midwest pulling a UHaul trailer (weighing 2500lbs total) behind my 1965 Cuda. I thought the powerful 318 V8 and Torqueflite transmission would do the trick, but I was barely able to make 45mph on the flats. And of course, it’s straight uphill from SF to Tahoe where you hit the Continental Divide. I managed to make it to the Divide and thought it would all be downhill from there so I’d be OK, but to my astonishment, you go downhill and then BACK uphill and cross the Divide AGAIN. So I gave up and exchanged the trailer for a big Uhaul truck and tow bed for the Cuda. When I got the truck, I noticed the exhaust was smoking a lot, I asked if I could have a different truck, they refused. The truck got 10 miles before the engine blew. Uhaul corporate kindly provided me with a free hotel room while they drove in a better truck from a different dealership. Asshole UHaul dealer lost their dealership for screwing me. Oh I could tell you stories about that move, like watching lightning strike 30 yards from my dead truck while waiting for the tow. Or watching in the rear view mirror as 3 tornados chased me across Wyoming. But I digress…
Anyway, I’d suggest that first of all, you take a good look at what you really need to keep. Throw away stuff mercilessly. This is a time to toss out crap.
Secondly, I seriously suggest you avoid using movers like Mayflower, Atlas, etc. They’re in the ripoff business, you never use those unless someone else is paying. If you must, you can palletize some stuff and send it via truck freight, it’s much cheaper.
Thirdly, you must pay obeisance to Opal.

8

Amtrak.

I moved from Philadelphia to San Diego, but my car had died so I flew. My stuff, however, I packed in 33 boxes weighing almost 1,000 pounds and it cost me a mere $375 to ship it all. Took about 8 days, and I just had to rent a U-Haul for a few hours to transport the stuff from the train station to my new place.

Limitations: They claim you cannot ship stuff, but what they really mean is that if you ship it, they won’t take responsibility for it (and note they were quite clear that they are not gentle with your stuff - I packed everything in my clothes which then went into the boxes, and only like 3 things were damaged in the transit). Things like breakables, liquids, furniture, appliances, electronics, that kind of stuff. Again, I shipped one entire box full of individually wrapped and well-packed coffee mugs, and 2 broke (both fixable, too).

That’s my recommendation, at least.

Esprix

9

Thanks, gang, I knew I could count on you for some helpful advice.

Towing a trailer with my car just ain’t gonna happen. I need my car when I get back to RI, and I need it in working order. virtee is selling his, so we only have the one to deal with luckily.

I’m leaning towards shipping most of our stuff right now. I’m also going to go through and get rid of a bunch of clothes I don’t need, donate them to Goodwill or something. We’re not bringing any furniture in particular, except one wooden chest thingy of virtee’s that has sentimental value. All my household goods are still in my parents basement in RI, so that’s good.

We also got some potentially helpful news. virtee’s grandfather and uncle are moving to Virginia from CA around the same time we’re thinking of leaving, and they might be willing to take some of our stuff to Virginia with them. Which is cool because we’re stopping in Virginia en route to visit his mom. So some of our stuff can go there and we can pick it up and bring it the 9 hrs to RI no problem.

I hear you on never moving again, Bobby. I said shortly after moving here that I would stay here the rest of my life just because I don’t ever want to have to drive through Utah or Nebraska again… and here I am doing it all over again, 6 months later. Oh well. It’s been adventure.

God I’m going to miss this place…

10

Dear Rasa,
I’ve also done this a few times. If you’re not doing big shipping items like furniture that’s great, makes it a lot easier. Really, MUCH easier.

First, plan to ship items. Get boxes which were first used to hold 10 reams of paper. These are a great size, and readily available from those big office stores. No kidding about the “great size”. You can put books in them, and they’re not too heavy. You can put fragiles in them, and there’s not too much room to clink around. You get the picture. Plus, when you get to destination, they stack nicely so you can unpack at your leisure and not have a messy array of parcels. None of these packages will cost more than $20 to ship, and that’s supposing its as heavy as it can be.

Important tip: The brown parcel shipping people are usually the cheapest, second to the federal governments alternative. Both offer slow services (still arrive cross country within two weeks) BUT… DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES tell them WHY you are shipping 25 or 30 boxes (i.e. “moving”) For some reason, they will refuse to insure your parcels if they know they are being shipped as a “move”.

I had heaps of boxes of clothing and books which I sent cross country, and they refused to insure it, because they associated moving with all sorts of fragiles. Only one or two of my boxes contained ‘fragile’ items, but HEY, ISNT THAT WHAT INSURANCE IS FOR??? Well, seems that insurance would also have covered LOST boxes, such as one of mine which contained a few things I’d like to have back. Too bad for me I told them I was moving.

My boxes each cost, on average, $15 to ship across the country. That means I spent roughly $350 to ship all my things. Minus the things I took in my car, and Minus one box of things I’d like to have back, but was not insured for because I told them I was moving. I guess you can see it’s still an “issue” I need to work on.

I donated all my furniture on the west coast to charity, and drove with my car uncluttered except for the toys (computer, t.v., etc.)

Good luck.

11

Oh yeah… I forgot my #1 most important piece of moving advice: never pack a box heavier than you want to lift. 'Cause you’ll be lifting a LOT of them. Small is better. Especially with books and papers, which tend to be deceptively heavy.

12

nah, you mean “especially with CDs”. No more than ten to a box or you’ll be looking up chiropracters when you get back to RI.

Rasa, I should be able to offer you advice since I’ve moved cross-country (or cross-Atlantic) about half a dozen times, but I think usually my stuff makes it to my destination by sheer luck :slight_smile: