What's the best way to transport moving boxes across the U.S.?

USPS has fixed-rate shipping for boxes under 70 lbs.

De plane!
De plane!

Removed by me because I mis-read.

My husband and I did this recently (from California to Pennsylvania,) but ended up driving with most of our belongings and shipping our books media rate because of the cost. That was absolutely NOT the best option. Our book boxes were crushed and abused, but what else is to be expected from an economical solution.

What I did see along the way that seems to be gaining popularity is the idea of pod shipping. Some companies will drop off a reasonably sized contained in front of your home, which you fill with your boxes, and then pick it up and ship it to the specified destination. Example

I think there are several companies to choose from, which may extend to mainstream shipment companies like UPS/FedEx, but I haven’t looked into it very thoroughly.

I did Minnesota to Philadelphia with Roadway rail freight – they were awesome. They palletized all our boxes for us at no extra charge (provided the pallet and wrapping, too), and took the shipment based on my estimate of the weight and then billed me for the rest. Reasonable prices, too, and all my stuff came through totally intact except for a canvas painting that got stretched a bit, but relaxed back after about a month. I’ll try to find my invoice from last year and get back to you. There was a similar question on this some months ago, too, that may have good suggestions.

Edit – there are some good websites out there that will give you comparisons between prices of various rail and trucking companies, based on weight, pickup and destination. Having trouble finding the one I used, but get creative with Google and I’m sure you could find a good site for this.

Oh, good for you for finding that, @wildpotato. I remembered it, but I couldn’t come up with the right search terms. Thank you!

I’ll take a look at all these options, and I welcome any further suggestions.

I’m pretty sure that the cheapest would be U-Pack since you only pay for the actual space which you use.

They bring the trailer to you, for packing/unpacking at both ends of the trip regardless of where you live.

Since you are doing the packing/unpacking (or hiring some intelligent college students as I did) you have maximum control. Plus they provide a retaining wall for your property to separate it from any other freight they carry so how your area is packed is totally under your own control.

I used them to move from Philadelphia to suburbs of Detroit and had no complaints.

The only minor mishap was a spilled bottle is Soy Sauce which was totally my own fault.

There phone number should be easy to find, or PM me and I’ll check my records.

I used GatorFreight to ship boxes from Florida to Arizona. They linked up with Yellow Freight and all the things arrived in fine shape. However, there is no insurance with a commercial freight line.

I have also used the iShip calculator to compare different options.

I do appreciate all the responses. So far no luck finding anyone who serves the departure area, and that includes POD and U-Pack. The comparison prices and shippers’ services that I looked up from links were geared to merchants who are shipping commercially. I hate to think this is going to cost us $700 via USPS or UPS.

How far out in the boonies is this place? I’m really surprised that Upack wouldn’t take it as they gave me the impression that they would deliver the trailer to any address.

Is it that they don’t have a shipping terminal there? They are a small part of a major shipper that goes all over the US. I can’t remember the name of the larger co. but I remember seeing their trucks all over the place. Really strange.

As noted in my question details: The Northeast location is a small village with no services or amenities to speak of. It’s 20 miles to the nearest town big enough to have a Safeway and a Kmart.

With Roadway, you could request a door-to-door delivery as long as their nearest rail station wasn’t a certain (large) distance from the drop-off point. I believe they had a flat fee for this, after adjusting for weight. You do have to load and unload yourself, though. Capt_Bloth thinks your best bet might be to have whatever service you choose drop the boxes off at that town 20 miles away and rent a Uhaul to pick them up from there. Hope you can avoid such a huge hassle!

There’s no problem with delivery. We are in a major city. It’s the starting point that’s remote. We are not having much luck figuring out how to arrange that. The idea of hauling the boxes to a rail station does have possibilities. Thanks.