Cross-country move by freight?

Ask a hobo.

Call your nearest ABF freight terminal. They will drop a container off and pick it up when loaded. They will also quote you a price. Good luck.

I misread your question. I thought you wanted to ship yourself as frieght.

My girlfriend used ABF (a freight company) to ship about 1,100 pounds of stuff about a thousand miles back in 2004. That particular service included them picking up the stuff and putting it on pallets, and then dropping it off. It was ~ $1700 and it took them a couple of weeks to deliver the stuff. The current U-Pack service requires you to pack a storage container or part of a trailer. I would say we’d use ABF again if we had a small amount of stuff.

For comparison, to move her and my stuff back (3,500 pounds? don’t recall precisely) with a full service mover, it was $5,600 in 2007 including packing services, and that took about the same amount of time. Full-service movers are expensive and can be difficult to work with; we used one because my (new) employer was willing to pay for it and had pre-negotiated arrangements with different companies.

If you haven’t yet been, visit Moving Scam. They are very helpful.

Good luck and safe travels.

Thanks. I’ve heard about ABF but am hoping to find something less expensive. As I am not moving furniture, just boxes of books, clothes, etc. I’ve heard it’s possible to send a pallet of stuff w/ a moving company and have them send it when they have free space. Just don’t know what companies might do this.