Moving Companies

[cucubits]

I keep coming up with very much non-notebook related topics 🙂

 

This is mostly a question for my US friends. Looking for recommendations on moving companies. The internet is full of these but if I start reading reviews, I won't pick any of them.

 

This is for a long distance move (2000 miles) and considering we have 2 cars, I'd much like to avoid driving a U-Haul truck. On the other hand, we don't really need "full service" movers, we are boxing up everything ourselves. We're disassembling all the furniture too so really we only need loading - delivery - unloading.

 

A few I already researched:

- U-haul truck which pulls a platform with one car + wife driving the other car: a little over $3000 + hotels for 2 nights + gas for the car being driven. Not ideal as I'm not sure how to stay safe with all our things moving across the country. 

- PODS: these seem cool, they drop off a makeshift shipping container like thing, we put all our stuff in, and they deliver it to the new location. For our particular move we were quoted $3500.

- American Van Lines: they seem to have good reviews and are well known. For a rough estimation of how many boxes we will have, they quoted us about $4500

 

So far no replies from others I contacted but I should have some numbers soon.

 

Any suggestions of other companies to try, or if there's anyone here with some sort of truck, let me know!

[Jarhead]

Can't comment on AVL, but have had family use PODS before. It's exactly as you describe: container at home, load, ship, container at new home, unload. Can't really complain about the service as it's exactly what was expected. In addition, that family member forgot to add something to the container and they were able to go to their storage facility to add it to the container before it shipped, so something that could happen if you need it.

 

As far as the full-service movers, I've had experience with Two Men and a Truck with two separate moves. Pretty pricey as well a la AVL, but overall I've had a good experience with them, barring one of my furniture pieces being scratched.

[cucubits]

Right as I was leaving today I saw a neighbor doing exactly this. It was perfect timing as I saw that indeed one of these containers would fit in front of our garage. Never heard of these pack rats but I'll look them up. PODS would be similar:

 

EDIT: disregard this particular company. It's horrifying to read this bad of reviews.

 

 

[SeanRobertsc]

Your situation reminds me of when I relocated cross-country. I stumbled upon ThreeMovers.com during my research and they were a game-changer. Simple, reliable, and took the stress out of the whole process. As for your dilemma, PODS seem pretty convenient for your needs, but it's smart to explore all options.