Long distance moves

I've done it. I suggest you sell all of your stuff and start over in your new town.

not an option, alas

Put your stuff in a secured storage locker. Move to the city and live in furnished airbnb until u find an apt. When you find an apt, hire a service to rent a truck, have movers pack the truck, then have them drive it cross country. Yes, there are services that do that.

That way you have your stuff being delivered on the day you move in to your apt. Large rental (Mayflower, United, etc) companies will put your stuff on a truck with other people's stuff and it will get to you ONCE a truck is headed in your direction. Very unreliable - there are NO good reviews for any long distance moving company.

It's a 4 day drive out to West Coast from Midwest - it's a week off of work and it's a horrible drive, with a couple of exceptions. Hiring a service to do it is cheaper (than a moving company), faster, and with less damage to your stuff.

All told though - it's not cheap. A truck and gas will be around $1700. I believe the service is around $400/day - plus you have to pay for their flights. I believe their hotel and food is included in the price.

It was worth it for me to hire someone. To do it yourself, it will cost $1300 for truck, $400-$500 for gas, plus hotels, food and a week of vacation lost.

OP, how much stuff do you have? Lots of furniture? Not interested in renting a U-Haul or Ryder truck?

Driving myself isn't an option - am a very occasional driver and I don't have the kind of driving skills that a big truck requires.

I rented a uhaul and drove myself, there are no good options, but that was the easiest one.

My parents moved from Northeast to Southeast, had a moving company pack up their house and hold it a few weeks until they were ready for it. It was under $10K.

Oy vey,....selling everything looks more and more attractive

R8 I did that. Even then I trailed a 5x8 U-Haul trailer for the little shit and it was a hassle with my underpowered car crossing the Divide. This was from Missouri to California

U Pack.

You pack, they drive from door to door. You unpack. Far less expensive than typical long-distance movers. I’ve used them a few times. If you don’t want to do any work yourself, hire day-labor on each end.

U Pack will also store your moving containers until you’re ready to have them delivered.

Pods does it as well. Drop off a container you fill it, you tell them when to pick it up and they move it cross town or cross country. It all depends on how much stuff you have. I had a job pay for my move, it was a nightmare at the end. The pack up part was great, about 10 people showed up they told me to go ahead and leave if I wanted - went out to dinner they called my cell and said they were ready to load the truck and needed me there. - Basically they gave me a sheet and I counted off boxes as they loaded. The nightmare came when they arrived at my new home. I was supposed to get a full unpack. The driver hired one guy. One. I asked him if that was enough and he looked at me odd and said why? I told him I was supposed to get a full unpack and he spent the next two hours on the phone with the moving company yelling, while the one guy they did hire would come in carrying one box at a time cutting it open and dumping the contents on the floor.

Pods is considerably more expensive than U Pack. I’ve done both.

I did the opposite and moved from West Coast to Midwest. We had a professional mover do the move. It was a bit of a nightmare. He gave us an estimate of $8k which was by far the lowest. Highest was $16k. When moving day came he brought his truck but not enough guys showed up so he was running way behind and his truck filled up. He had to come back a second day for another load. Showed up by himself and charged us an extra $850 for the second load. Not much we could do when he already had 80% of our stuff. Originally, he told us that he would drive the load back because he knew the city we were moving to and had relatives there. Ultimately, he farmed it out to another company like most movers do. He had all of our stuff unpacked and put in his warehouse and then repacked into the second company's truck. Most movers do this so beware your stuff will be packed, unpacked and then packed again. Single guy drove it across country. He hired two guys locally to unpack. In hindsight, we brought a lot of junk that we didn't need. We found our mover through Angies List and he had lots of good recommendations. Ours wasn't one of them. Beware. Moving industry is filled with frauds and fakes. Also, shipped a car which cost about $1200. Everything was fine with it except the shipper couldn't find a larger shipper coming through our city for about two weeks later than promised. Lots of middlemen in shipping industry. Guy you deal with on one end won't be the guy who delivers your stuff.

[quote] He had to come back a second day for another load.

don't they all

What R1 said. If you're not taking that advice, you're not here for real advice.

Sell everything but the most personal items. It will cost you thousands and thousands to move it. Thousands more to store it for any period of time, once you factor in the cost of moving it again, this time from storage.

And what do you accomplish? You will have aging furniture that doesn't fit well in the new residence and which has now been banged up a bit from all the moving. Even the stuff that fits will look hopelessly midwestern in a California home.

Even the best possible outcome is a shitty outcome and you'll pay thousands of dollars to make it happen.

We're selling a lot of it, R16, but we have a few high end, very modern pieces we're not selling.

So we still have to move them.

Not to worry, R17. They will look fabulous in California, all scratched.

I had a small two bedroom apt in Vancouver and moved to MTL. Total cost $5600 and nothing was damaged. We sold and gave away a lot of stuff prior to the move. It was expensive but worth it. Check BBB reviews as well as social media reviews.

I moved from Boston to the Bay Area and moved a studio apartment's worth of stuff for about 3K though Gentle Giant.

I brought two big suitcases and flew--I didn't have a car until I moved here.

I've used car transport services when moving. There are sites where companies bid for the service; they're bonded and insured. Spent $300 transporting an SUV 1000 miles to another state.

Are you paying for this move all yourself or is your job covering it?

If you are paying for it yourself, then I would recommend the same thing everyone else is – get rid of everything except for artwork that you love and personal items that have sentimental value and then just start over in the new place. Between Craigslist, next-door.com, and estate sales there are so many options nowadays for finding household items at a very reasonable price that unless you are bringing family heirlooms or your job is paying for it, it’s probably best to downsize and start over.

[quote]We found our mover through Angies List and he had lots of good recommendations. Ours wasn't one of them. Beware.

I’ve come to realize these companies that claim to have “real” reviews and recommendations of “quality” people are usually full of shit in my experience.

Call a couple of moving companies and ask them to come to your house and give you an estimate. They will try to compete with each other. Some will give estimates by phone or Internet too. You can either pay by weight or you can rent an entire truck for a fixed price. Hire a reputable company. You can find reviews on line. Do as much of your own packing as you can. My recent move from a 4 bedroom home in FL to a 3 br apt in VA cost about $5000. Everything went smoothly with no damage.

R24 Thank you for your info, and for not suggesting we sell everything. (Folks, no matter how many people suggest it, IT IS NOT HAPPENING.)

Your situation was closest to ours and I anticipated about that much $$ to move. I'm just a bit scared in terms of measuring who the best company will be, etc. Also, we are somewhat homeless for two weeks after they pick up our furniture so I want to be sure we have storage, too.

Did you use a national company, or a local one to you? Just curious. Thanks.

R25 It doesn't matter if it is a local or national company. They are all going to take your stuff, unpack it in a warehouse and then bid it out to a secondary transport. I thought I had found a local company that would pack it in the truck that would deliver it and that just doesn't seem to happen.

If you don't have much, I recommend using a PODS. It was convenient and they can hold it for you until you want it delivered giving you the time to travel along the way there at leisure. It will also encourage you to reduce what you have and it's always exciting to get new stuff when you move in and it fits the new locale. Also, always ask your new job if they will pay for relocation, I have been happily surprised a few times.

So if you hire a company to do it, and then they bid it out to a secondary company, who is responsible if something goes wrong? And is there anyway to get rid of the middleman (who seems to be the person you hire)?

I've heard horror stories about companies holding your stuff hostage but I thought Obama placed some rule that prevents them from doing that anymore.

I've had pretty good experiences with U-Pack like R10. Far cheaper.

I think we are going w/U Pack. We just have to figure out whether we'll do pods or a truck.

We don't have much big furniture, but we probably have 40-50 boxes that will also go, so I have to see what works best.

When I moved to Edinburgh three years ago I sold or gave away my furniture, asked my brother to hold onto a few boxes of stuff (mainly kitchen equipment and dishes) that I wanted to keep. Then I packed a suitcase full of clothes and got on a plane. I moved into a furnished flat when in Edinburgh and that was it.

I had already downsized in 2007 when I moved from a large home into a one bedroom condo. I just repeated the process this time around when I moved to Edinburgh. Amazing how many things we hang onto that we really don't use.

Next year I'm moving back to the states. Again I'll only take my clothes back with me and buy the necessary furniture to make my new place livable. It's probably cheaper to buy new (or gently used) furniture than moving it across the country. Another thing I probably won't buy is a car. I'm okay with public transportation, Uber, biking, or renting a car if needed.

Be really careful OP! Watch this video of this woman who not only got scammed, but almost all of her stuff was ruined!

OP I used a smaller national company because they did indeed drive the truck with my stuff on it directly to my new location. I didn’t need storage. It took them 3-5 days from start to finish. I think loading and unloading your own stuff is great if you can do it, but I couldn’t. I paid half the money when they loaded and the other half when they unloaded.

Speaking from personal experience, no matter which option you choose: Consider selling any furniture that has glass tops or other fragile elements, or it may end up in pieces. Luckily, I bubble-wrapped the living crap out of smaller fragile items, and they all made it intact.

These suggestions are for people without expensive furniture. I have close to $1 million in furniture, art and antiques, so I could never move it halfway across the country like some of you suggest. I would only deal with high-end moving companies if it were me. Of course, you're going to pay 3x as much.

I have antiques and art that I've collected from my travels around the world and each piece has meaning to me. I would never consider selling any of it. It would be like selling away my precious memories.

A long post based on recent experiences....

When you’re self-packing, use as many boxes that are the same exact size as possible to make packing/.stacking the pod/truck as efficient and stable as possible. Buy boxes at Home Depot or Lowes by the cart load. By the way, their heavy duty boxes add overall weight. If you pack your boxes well - without leaving empty space which causes boxes to collapse - the regular weight boxes should be sufficient. Ue bedding, sheets, pillows, etc., to fill spaces in the boxes. Fill boxes as much as possible without overfilling, which makes them wobbly when stacked.

Mark heavy boxes somehow (a colored sticker, writing Heavy, etc.). This makes stacking boxes easier since you want heavy on the bottom and light on top in the pod/truck.

When you pack the pod/truck, put a mattress or something large between rows of boxes to add stability and prevent shifting. Use ropes attached to the wall anchors to add stability between rows, as well.

Go on Nextdoor.com to get free bubblewrap, packing paper, etc. before you spend money on it. Personally, I wouldn't bother getting used boxes since they may be crumpled and/or of mixed sizes.

Label your boxes very specifically with its contents. Not by room, but, for example, “King sheets”, “KitchenAide mixer, Tupperware, and Grandma’s mixing bowls”. I found that labels like Kitchen or Master Bedroom weren’t specific enough when I needed to look for a specific item before all of our boxes had been unpacked.

I moved semi-cross-country twice. When I moved from the east coast to the midwest, I hired a moving company who had a driver and helper load the driver’s truck. The driver picked up someone else’s stuff on the way to my destination (which I knew would happen ahead of time), and he delivered my stuff himself. He literally slept in his truck at night instead of paying for hotels. My stuff didn’t fill his truck, so they coordinated a second customer making the trip. My items never left his truck. When he arrived in MI, my boxes and furniture were in the exact same position in his truck as when he closed the door on the east coast. My second move - from the midwest to the west coast - was a corporate relocation, and the employer paid for everything. Having a team come to pack our belongings was great but stressful (since I’m a control freak, and our boxes ended up not being labeled correctly by room or contents).

We drove from the midwest to California in January. To avoid bad weather, we took a southerly route (south to St. Louis and then west to Albuquerque and into CA). This was much safer than driving the main northern route west through Denver. My point is to evaluate the time of year you’ll be driving and plan a route accordingly. The slightly higher # of miles of our southerly route ended up being a good decision because bad weather in the north closed highways while we were happily driving down south.

Happy to answer other specific questions you might have.

Well smell you, R36.

R38-We must be psychically bonded, I was thinking the same.

Thank you R37! Very helpful.

My husband recently got a new job and his company paid for corporate movers. We were going from apartment to house so we did buy a lot of new stuff when we moved, but kept the older pieces for secondary spaces (second living room, basement, spare bedroom, etc.) and that was all moved with him. Unfortunately, his company has a policy that the move had to happen x number of days within HIS relocation and I stayed back for a while, so we also needed a U-Haul to get the rest of the stuff when I finally moved.

I can’t remember the name of the company that moved our stuff the first time, but I recommend full service. We didn’t have to pack a thing! Of course, we also weren’t paying for it!

One more thing I thought of.... Are you driving into California? If so, look for information online about the agricultural inspection at the border. (Actually, other western states may have this as well, so check online.) It's like a toll booth, and you're asked if you're bringing in any fruit, plants, soil, and such. Since CA is home to a huge amount of agriculture, the state is very careful about people bringing in any disease or insects. Any unlabeled fresh fruit (where there's no country of origin shown) will be confiscated, and they'll inspect houseplants and perhaps lawn equipment like lawnmowers. Have your lawn equipment as clean as possible for the move.

Also. for packing, please buy yourself one or two packing tape dispensers and plenty of tape. It'll make your life so much easier.

I bought number and alphabet stickers on Amazon and labelled each box, and wrote down contents of each box in detail. It made it much easier to look for stuff when you arrive at your destination.

When hiring movers, large TVs have to be specially packed in a crate. This is performed by a third-party company, usually costs $200-300 additional.

Having movers disassemble and assemble furniture is an additional expense.

Moving companies estimate cost based on weight. When I moved, I obtained estimates frome 5-6 national and regional movers. Surprisingly, they all came up with weight estimates within 100 pounds of each other.

R42 Good points but we won't have any food, plants or lawn equipment

We avoided the extra charge for tv by padding it with blankets and putting it in the SUV we were driving ourselves as well other special or fragile items we didn’t want to trust to movers. Agree with accurate & specific labeling of boxes. Seems like a hassle when you’re packing but means a lot when you’re unpacking.