Moving Advice

HI everyone,

My husband and I will be moving across the country in 2 months. All of our previous moves have been within a 50 mile radius, so this is a huge move for us. Any advice you can offer from your moving experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if you can recommend any good moving companies, that would be great too! I've heard horror stories about moving companies so I checked out the Better Business Bureau last night and was horrified by how many complaints some of these companies had....especially complaints about overcharging and not delivering on time!!

And any recommendations on car transport services? Tips for traveling across country with cats?? We'd love to fly, but with our budget that's pretty much out of the question, so we'll be lugging our 2 cats from CA to NC!! YIKES!!!! 8O 8O 8O

Thanks! Erica

[twinsmom]

Erica -
Wow! You do have a big move in front of you. It gets crazy trying to get all the details worked out. We did the self move and just rented a truck to haul everything. It was a pain in the butt, but SOOO much cheaper.
I don't really have any other advice, other then to say keep out a bag of 'necessities' to have with you for the traveling. Keep them in the car so you don't have to go digging through everything to find your toothbrush!
Other then that, just hold your breath and keep repeating, "we will get there... we will get there..." it's a long haul, but it will pass!! Good luck!!

Jen B.

[SuzySunshine]

We're moving next month as well, from CA to MN. We are being moved by North American Van Lines because once we compared the cost of doing it ourself to the Mayo rates that North American had it was just a little more expensive and we decided it wasn't worth it. We also got free Maximum Protection insurance through our undergrad's alumni association so always ask for things like that as well.

We are driving ourselves in my car and selling the other car. We are transporting some irreplaceables (like our wine collection, wedding photos, etc.) ourselves.

As for do it yourself companies - Penske has a discount if you book online and they have a AAA discount if you're a member. My husband and I both used them when we originally moved to CA from KS (seperately) and had fine experiences.

[Sheherezade]

As for the cats--we have driven several times with various animals on long trips. Not cross country, but 15+ hours. With the cats, we always took a carrier for them and then opened the door after we'd gotten "settled" on the highway. We had one that was really into road trips and used to curl up on the dash to hang out. The other was completely freaked out and meowed for the first hour we were on the road. She settled down eventually and stayed in the carrier for the entire trip. I think moving is a freaky experience for pets so keep in mind they will be a little jumpy (but they love the boxes!!). One of the major hotel lines--I think its Days Inn??-- accepts pets at many of its locations. When we've stopped with cats or dogs it has never been a problem, even without a reservation. I will see if I can remember the chain, I'm not certain about it. If you do a search on pet friendly travel I'm sure it will turn up. Good luck!

Angie

We're getting ready to move too.
There are a few companies that are a mix between a total do it yourself move and a moving company move. The ones I know of are: http://www.citytocity.com and
http://www.upack.com/default.asp?REFnum=ABFServ

With both, you pack up the truck (or hire movers to pack it), a semi picks it up and takes it to destination and then you unpack (or hire local movers to do it). I think this is what we are going to do. I think it's going to be around $1,200 - $1,500 not including the packing and unpacking. I'm not sure how that compares to renting a truck.

You could also hire local movers to pack and unpack a Uhaul.

Let us know what you find out!

Cheri -- thanks for mentioning that Mayo has an agreement with a moving company. I've been meaning to check w/ DH's residency program about the same.

Thanks so much for the great advice! It helps knowing that others have been through this, too! The companies that just move your things sound great and I'm sure they're a big money saver. We have a lot of day laborers looking for work in our town, so I'm sure we can find some to help us load the truck, but I don't know if any are available in the town we're moving to, so I'll have to do some research.

Cheri, I'll have to check into North American Van Lines, too. I'm not sure if my husband can get a discount through UCLA, but I never even thought of checking until you mentioned it. I have United Van Lines coming out and giving me a quote next week...hopefully I won't be too shocked by the price.

We were going to ship both of our cars, but we were quoted $1800 for that! And the shippers would only give us a 7-14 day window of when we could expect our cars to arrive. Having a rental car for 2 weeks would really add up! I think we're going to drive my husband's car and ship mine or try to sell it.


Thanks for the tips on pets, Angie. I did a search for pet friendly travel today and found a great website: http://www.petswelcome.com. It mapped out the directions to our destination and listed all of the hotels along our route that accepted pets. It even listed the contact info & pet policy of each hotel. Some hotels charged anywhere from $0 to $100 for a pet deposit. Marriott doesn't charge anything and even has treats at the front desk for pets...not that our cats will be in the mood for treats after 4 days on the road!! If anyone else is traveling with pets, you should check out this website.

I have a tip for everyone else who is moving (sorry if you all have heard this one before!) Put a colored label on your boxes depending on what room they belong in. For instance, I cut up different colors of cardstock and glued one on to each box...yellow is for kitchen, blue is for bedroom, green is bathroom, etc.... When we get to our new house, I will tape a piece of blue cardstock over our bedroom door, green over the bathroom, etc...so our movers will know which room each box goes into. My aunt did this when she moved and the movers never had to ask where to put anything.

Erica

Thanks so much for the great advice! It helps knowing that others have been through this, too! The companies that just move your things sound great and I'm sure they're a big money saver. We have a lot of day laborers looking for work in our town, so I'm sure we can find some to help us load the truck, but I don't know if any are available in the town we're moving to, so I'll have to do some research.

It's pretty easy to find local movers -- look for names like Student Movers, Starving Students, that sort of thing (though they are rarely students). Friends of mine used day laborers in LA and didn't have any problems. I would be hesitant to take that approach if they aren't experienced at moving things. Local moving companies would be more likely to be bonded and insured -- if they break something, you're covered. Just a thought.

[peggyfromwastate]

We did a cross country do it yourself move last year from Washington state to Maryland. It was a long trip, especially with 3 kids, 2 of them being 2 years old! We (I) planned lots of stops along the way, including Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Mall of America, visit with Great-Grandparents, etc. It ended up that we were on the road for 15 days! My husband left us after about 10 days and with my 2 bros. they drove to our new house ahead of the rest of the fam and unpacked the truck. The truck rental (Budget, which was by far the cheapest) was around $1600 for that number of miles. The military said it would have cost them around $6000 to move our stuff for that number of miles. Since we are military, we did get reimbursed quite well for the whole shindig, but it was a lot of $$ upfront. If I were you, I'd plan on at least $5K for your whole process, if you get a good deal on a moving company, don't stay at many hotels, and do not ship both cars. I've had experience shipping vehicles too-- from TX to WA and the cheapest rate I found was $800, so probably the $1800 for both your cars is a pretty good rate, I'd say. We didn't have to mess with that, since we drove the van out and my husband had already driven out his Camry. Oh yeah--- don't forget the lovely cost of gas! So if you were to drive out, keep in mind that the moving trucks get from 4-12 miles per gallon of Diesel!!! Just another thought...

Anyway, good luck with all that! I hope your labeling system works, I know mine did not. My bros and DH were way to tired to even look when they were unloading. It was such a disaster it makes me want to cry even now when I reflect...

[DCJenn]

My single piece of advice, unfortunately from living the nightmare is to board you animals while boxes are being packed. If I'd boarded them, we'd have four cats instead of 3. I'd give anything to do it all over again- and let me tell you, the sheer horror that STILL wakes me up at night, is soooo not worth it.

Jenn

[peggyfromwastate]

OOOOOHHHH Jenn that is horrible! did the military do that packing job or was that your own? That is definitely something one wouldn't think to do for a move, but good advice!

[Rapunzel]

Jenn that really is unbelievably awful. Did the moving company express any apologies?

When we moved 1800+ miles from Dallas to Boston we had four kids and two cats in our minivan. I took precautions with the cats by having their vet prescribed some mild sedatives before we left. We ended up only using a few doses over the first half of the trip because they (the cats) really seemed to have found their "groove" in the car after a day and a half on the road. We sent our cats to my sister's house for a couple of days while the movers packed up our belongings (I'd heard the horror stories - see Jenn's). The cats had their carrier as their "room" while we were driving. We didn't really let them out of the carrier while the car was in motion for two reasons: Our pets are explorers and rather aggressive when it comes to demanding love and attention. Jon and I were both worried that a cat might find the accelerator or brake pedals or their corresponding feet to be comfy places to rest (they are large cats as well). The second reason for the confinement-in-motion was because we were concerned that in the event of a wreck we would have two large projectiles in the car. So, we put them in the carrier and threaded the safety belt around it somehow.

We also did not have any problems with hotels and our pets. For the life of me I cannot remember all of the hotels we stayed at (three total). The cats were a lot like our children in that it was a great adventure as long as Mom and Dad were calm and in control. As long as we didn't freak out or become anxious the cats were fine (but, we do have rather laid-back animals).

I think our overriding treatment of our pets when we were making such a huge move was that we "ranked" things being moved by importance and planned accordingly: 1)living things with the children's needs coming before the animals' and 2)our possessions. I found in the frenzy and chaos of moving it helped me focus by remembering the priorities.

Good luck!!!

Jennifer