Organizing your move to the other side of the world.

In this article, I will be talking about the physical move of all your stuff. And organizing your move to the other side of the world based on my own experience from the UK to the US. Then within the US. My husband and I luckily always lived in furnished places previously. And didn’t have furniture to carry with us when we moved from London to Seattle. However, we also moved from Seattle to New York. This time, we had a full one-bedroom apartment to move with us. I will go through these two experiences and tell you which company we’ve been using both times.

For the first move, we had in total 6 very large boxes to take with us full of clothes and decoration pieces. The company that moved us paid for it so I won’t be able to tell you how much it costs. They used https://www.ems.post/en. We were told not to pack any fragile items as they were looking after it. We couldn’t take any liquid and obviously, nothing alive such as a plant. They asked us for a time when they could come to pick our stuff. On the due day, two people came with all the tools, boxes they packed everything and took it with them.

From there the company needed about four weeks to ship our boxes. It was going to take about four weeks. We knew in advance and adapted our luggage. The move was at the end of September and Seattle is quite mild from September to November. We knew we were not going to need winter clothes. This is something worth thinking about when you start packing and don’t know exactly how long you are going to need to live out of a suitcase.

After about four weeks, the company contacted us. They told us they were ready to deliver. We arranged a day and someone came and brought all the packages in our flat. It took about 45 min and all the experience was easy and efficient. Nothing ends up damaged.

The second experience was a bit different. This time we stayed in the same country but moved from one side to the other with much more stuff. We spent a year in Seattle. In the US it’s very hard to find a furnished apartment so we had to furnish our. We invested quite a lot so when we decided to move to New York we took everything with us. Also, we wanted movers to do the full pack, meaning disassembled, packing, reassembled, unpacking…

To find companies, e used the website https://www.movebuddha.com/. The website is clear, easy to use, and gives you all the information you need. We contacted 4 companies to get quotes and make a decision.

We ended up going with a company name Safeway Moving Systems LLC. They had the best quote and very good reviews. We had a one-bedroom apartment to move, including a king-size bed and a five-seat sofa which by themself were what took the most space. We had a lot of boxes with appliances, cookware, clothes, shoes…

The quote was estimated for 524 cf (3668 lbs) and the cost with a discount as a first-time customer of $ 3729.43. The quote is evaluated on the volume. They charged $6 per cf, and the fuel for us the distance was estimated at 2829 miles. Once we agreed to go with them, we had to pay a deposit for 40% of the total price straight away. Then 30% when our stuff was taken and 30% when delivered.

A few days before the moving day, received a call to go through the inventory one more time. And got the confirmation of the timeline. On the day, about 40 min before, they call us to let us know how far they were. Three men came with boxes, tools, wrap, blankets… They spent 2 hours to pack everything and one hour to charge their truck. We paid with a check. They told us we would hear from the company 24h before they could deliver. They told us initially that it could take up to 21 days.

This was smooth and easy. The only bad surprise was the final price, we had to add almost $300 for space. After that, we moved to New York and received a phone call 12 days later for the delivery of the following day. We arranged everything on our side and they came in the middle of the afternoon. This time only two men were here. It took about 1h to empty the truck and then another hour to assemble all the furniture and we finished unpacking the rest afterward.

The timing was better than expected, all went great. Everything was in good condition apart from two wine glasses that didn’t make it. But the price ended up higher than expected from about $ 700 and the people who came to deliver our furniture used a massive truck and it was a bit of a nightmare to organize the parking.

Overall, this was a good experience. Moving is always stressful no matter what and we did it as smoothly as possible both times. The best advice I would give is to try to be as organized as possible and don’t put too much attention on things you can’t control.

For more information about moving abroad, I talk about it in the article https://elvinechloe.com/make-the-best-move-from-europe-to-the-us/.