Shipping just a small amount

[mighty mouse]

We are planning on moving to NZ for 3 years at the end of January - my husband will be a PhD student, and we will find a small apartment to rent. Being students, we don't own much - and we don't plan on bringing much, either. We won't be taking any appliances or furniture, but we will still be bringing more than can fit in a couple suitcases.

Does anyone have any experience moving just a small amount from the US? A lot of what we have seen shows either something so small, like 1 suitcase worth on the plane, or a 20ft Shipping container. Is there a happy medium out there? We don't even know where to start looking!

[Hagabel]

We are planning on moving to NZ for 3 years at the end of January - my husband will be a PhD student, and we will find a small apartment to rent. Being students, we don't own much - and we don't plan on bringing much, either. We won't be taking any appliances or furniture, but we will still be bringing more than can fit in a couple suitcases.

Does anyone have any experience moving just a small amount from the US? A lot of what we have seen shows either something so small, like 1 suitcase worth on the plane, or a 20ft Shipping container. Is there a happy medium out there? We don't even know where to start looking!

The smallest amount we were quoted was a 20 ft container but I believe I have read on here about people sharing containers with other people for less.
We used Rainier out of Seattle, WA and were really pleased with them.
You could try calling them and asking them(google them) or wait for answers here,

Good luck.

[wiseboy22]

Contact your airline to see how much baggage they will allow you to take. I know of some people who were allowed up to 40kg. Also, from the US you tend to get more allowance than from anywhere else. Maybe look at a business or first class ticket, as you can take a lot more luggage that way!

[Cherry]

We have a 20ft container on its way over, but we were given lots of shipping options from Anglo Pacific. You can "share a container" and just take up a little bit of space or you can air mail boxes over but they charge you by the kilo. Each company is different but there are options out there! Try with the main shipping companies first and get some quotes; to get a quote you will need to be fairly accurate on how much stuff you are taking or the price could be completely wrong. There will be someone on here who has done it im sure who may be able to help you more.
good luck x

[roguester]

Hi, we just moved here in NZ and yes just call the airline and inform them that you will be migrating (sometimes they ask for documentation like copy of Visa) and they wil increase your allowance per person.

If you still have more stuff but lesser than 20ft container, you may want to look into baggagexs http://www.baggagexs.com/

That is what we did. our things are already on its way... =)

Hope this helps!

[dwgknz]

If you are flying Air New Zealand they offer a very reasonable $50 for an additional piece of luggage up to 23kg per person. We flew out from Canada and the US in September and although we did ship our belongings in a container from the UK we spent 3 months travelling with 2 kids and about 200kg worth of luggage (plus car seats and strollers)! We looked at shipping some of this from Canada but found it a lot cheaper (and inconvienient) to carry it with us.

[TJH]

We are planning on moving to NZ for 3 years at the end of January - my husband will be a PhD student, and we will find a small apartment to rent. Being students, we don't own much - and we don't plan on bringing much, either. We won't be taking any appliances or furniture, but we will still be bringing more than can fit in a couple suitcases.

Does anyone have any experience moving just a small amount from the US? A lot of what we have seen shows either something so small, like 1 suitcase worth on the plane, or a 20ft Shipping container. Is there a happy medium out there? We don't even know where to start looking!

We were in a similar situation when we moved here. We ended up mailing over a couple of big boxes of stuff via USPS. It was pretty expensive but was the least expensive option out there and we looking into it extensively.

Since you are in Cali if you can manage to leave directly from LAX as opposed to having a connection in the US, I think you can simply bring a bunch of suitcases or boxes of stuff on the plane for a fee which would likely be less than shipping. You would only have to pay the baggage fee once then rather than for the US leg and then the NZ ones. I heard once on here two people bringing over 10 pieces of luggage from the US once when they moved here.

[Azkateaz]

I haven't used them yet but upakweship has some options for individual box shipments or small pallets of goods. It is way less expensive than USPS and is what we plan to do.

[mighty mouse]

Thanks for all the replies!

Found out yesterday it will likely be the end of February or March before we're able to head over - FBI results take forever! But, it does give us some more time to prepare.

I've thought about trying to get more luggage on a plane - but we don't have that many suitcases, and I'm not sure how well boxes would stand up to being moved around that much... we also won't have room to store extra suitcases in our place over there.

We're flying out of San Francisco - we've found a flight that only makes a stop in Auckland, so that helps a ton! Also, we don't have a place lined up over there - we're going to try to find a hostel or something similar to stay in for cheap while we check some places out, so not sure how it will all work with luggage coming over....


So much to think about!