I would love to hear any recommendations or anecdotal experiences of shipping belongings- we are heading from Staffordshire to Calgary, just two adults and a dog. We are limiting what we take with us as much as possible, but there are a few odd articles we really want including framed artworks, a jar of layered sand and heirloom crockery. Did anyone ship using pallets? Is it cost effective to just take extra baggage on the plane? Would you recommend using a packing company for their professional approach/insurance? Any things you wish you had/hadn't bought?

Hi,

We used https://www.doreebonner.co.uk/ 2 days ago to ship our household effects to Ontario as we plan to be there early September. The crew handling our move were very proficient and new how to pack, handle and wrap all our items especially the delicate ones. The one learning I discovered literally 10 mins after their van left was that make sure you have identified everything you want to take before it is shipped as we still have a handful of things that missed the cut. The good thing is that we can still take them duty free if we ensure they are on our goods to follow list regardless of when/how we ship them.

Thanks for the info, I'll check out the link
How much stuff roughly did you take- was it a house full, furniture, vehicles, tools, etc.? How many people are you moving?

Circa 392 sq3 of household effects including some furniture (sofas/dining table & chairs) for a family comprising 2 adults and 2 children. The whole job was done in about 5 hours with all of our items being boxed, sealed and expertly wrapped. Hopefully they will turn up in the same condition to our new home in Oakville where we will be anticipating this door to door service. For what it's worth I shopped around and got quotes from various companies before settling with Doree Bonner. The pricing was reasonable and more importantly lots of positive feedback (reviews) that helped cement my decision.

https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Shipping-Canada
https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Transporting_Pets-Canada
https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Goods_To_Follow-Canada

Bring your dog(s) as excess baggage - far cheaper If you haven't got a lot of goods, consider 'cargo' - air transat etc., quite good prices and insurance is cheap!


Tons of threads on shipping https://www.google.com/search?q=brit...ax%3A2021&tbm=

My experience was that it was extremely expensive. I'd say don't ship anything you can sell and rebuy

Thank you for the links- it's sometimes overwhelming trying to find current information relevant to our situation!
The dogs as excess baggage idea looks good- almost too good to be true. Do you happen to know what is the quickest was of transporting a dog eg. clearance through the airports at both ends?

Hi,

We used white and company.

We packed most of our stuff in moving boxes ourselves. The quote they gave us also included packing. So I guess they would be able to wrap/pack the artwork and any large items that wouldn’t ordinarily fit in a box.

At last, someone who thinks like me.
I can understand bringing over a few sentimental bits but to ship the whole house contents is in my eyes bonkers.
Yet, thousands still continue to do this!
Would love to know the stats on how many then ship it all back when things don't work out, I'd imagine it's very high.
In Oz, they call them the 'boomerang poms'

There ought to be a thread for that - been there, gone home!

Well as we have all seen people pose questions about this that and the other and are given advice by many. They can either choose to heed the advice or do their own thing and suffer any consequences that might happen.

At the risk of opening a whole can of worms that frankly has no relevance to me any more, when we moved over from the UK to Canada nearly 11 years ago, I think it cost us approximately 7,800 GBP for the packing, fees, delivery and unpacking. This was for a 40 ft container. There is no way we could have furnished another 5 bedroomed house for that little money; certainly not when one takes into account some of the antiques and pictures we possess. So, for us, the decision didn't feel "bonkers" at all.

I agree - we brought everything with us - 17 years ago, cost was about $6k including all the packing, door to door delivery and dealing with all the customs forms etc. Upon arrival we bought new office furniture, and a new bedroom set (bed, night tables, 2 dressers) as our new house had more bedrooms than the old one. It cost us $8k to buy those. 17 years later we are still sitting on the sofa we bought with us, and looking around the living room much of the furniture in here came from the UK. If you are the buy cheap furniture for a year or two and then replace type of person then shipping is probably not the option for you, but if you keep your stuff for a long time then I think it is worth it. The other factor I think is that having your stuff around you makes it feel like home. Particularly important for the kids, I remember the day the container arrived and they got their bikes and all of their toys - they were so excited.

Thank you both for this view- this is something we have considered, especially since our house in Canada will likely have more rooms to fill than we currently have furniture for, so it'll involve some buying anyway. I imagine this could be a good option, but for us we only have a couple of pieces of long-lasting solid furniture (dining table and chairs and a sideboard), most other big items are second-hand or flat pack, which we would aim to be replacing over time with decent things. Most of the 'cost' in replacing I feel would be in clothes- we have a lot of coats and shoes etc. which really add up if we had to buy again, crockery, tools, etc. We could probably pack it all into a few (overweight) cases, but I wondered if there was an option to ship a wrapped palette or anything smaller than a container?

You can bring boxes as air freight (air cargo) which is generally cheaper than excess luggage. My son's friend bought several boxes of tools by 'air cargo'- (Worth noting that you shouldt ensure that any tools you bring are put down as tools for personal hobby/DIY use, to preclude any taxes being charged). My son used Air Transat Cargo to ship many boxes of his belongings. He booked in advance and took the boxes to the airport a few hours before his flight, checked the cargo in then had breakfast and took the same flight to Toronto. On arrival, he got the GTF list stamped then we relaxed for a couple of hours (for the cargo to be unloaded and transported) then took him to the cargo terminal, where he paid the 'fee' (as he was landing as a permanent resident with a goods to follow list there were no import duties etc.,) and collected the shipment.

https://www.airtransat.com/en-GB/Tra.../Baggage/Cargo


If you did want to bring any items of furniture, you could send them in a 'shared' container - Groupage. https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Shipping-Canada