Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

We're moving either late this year or early next but we're not sure how to transport out stuff over. We are selling most things over here ie. furniture etc and will replace when we settle, but will still have a buggy (roadworthy), about 4 storage boxes of personal belongings and a cat to transport.
What would you recommend, we've started pricing up things like van hire, flights, containers but would like to hear what other people have done and how easy it was.
Thanks in advance!

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

a road worthy buggy ?? a beach buggy? a VW ???

and 4 storage boxes?? thats under a 1m3 isn´t it? the boxes are 500mm X 500mm X 500mm right?? so four of them is gonna cost you like .. 60 quid to transport to spain. the cat can come on the plane with you.


actually.. put the boxes in the back of the buggy and get that transported for 300 quid - et voilais all your stuff is here when you arrive :)

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Well we're the same as you as we are selling most stuff and just taking a small amount with us. Somehow english style furniture just doesn't look right in a Spanish house imho.

So what we will be taking will be quite valuable to us, and I'm not going to risk giving it to some bloke in a van. Such a small amount of stuff will get lost in the big removals companies system and probably take months to get to Spain.

I am actually thinking about hiring a van in Spain and coming back to the UK to pick up the stuff. At least I end up in the right place, and as I have a car to take down there it makes sense. Haven't checked on hire rates yet though!

Sending the cat on the plane apparantly can cost a few hundred quid so I've seen someone post in the past.

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

And can be more stressful for older cats, or cats that can't be given a little something to chill them out, than going by chunnel/road.

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

I'm in a similar situation WRT bring furniture over to Spain (tho' hopefully
in the next few months rather than next year).
Personally, I'm planning on transporting beds rather than selling & rebuying
as I feel that nobody would want to buy secondhand beds so the price I got
would be very low.

I've priced up hiring a transit (or similar) and it came to about £500 for a
week. The complication is that a lot of the cheapo hire places don't let you
take a vehicle outside the UK. Add on another £500 for ferries to Spain, as
I'm much too lazy to drive through France twice, and it adds up. Therefore
I am giving serious thought to buying a secondhand van for about £1500,
using it for the trip and selling it again afterwards - I doubt it'll depreciate
much in a month or two.

Pete

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

We were really lucky a friend transported our stuff down here for us - the total cost was around 1500 pounds - that was for a van hire, fuel, tolls and ferries. We were quoted 6000 pounds from a removal firm. I see a business opportunity here for someone prepared to do small removals for people relocating to Spain?? I think the going rate for BA to bring a cat is around 500 pounds!!

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

6000pounds is extortionate, theres no way we'd pay that!!!
You were really lucky that a friend helped you out, we are thinking of hiring a van, a friend and my hubby sharing the driving down to Spain and then our friend drives it back, is that similar to what you did?
And 500pounds to fly my cat over!!! Can't he get a cheap seat with Ryanair!!!!!!! Anyway, will have to pay it cos I;m not leaving him here.
Thanks for the advice.

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Hi there - Unfortunately Ryanair do not accept pets - I don't know exactly what BA charge but I know it is expensive as they have to heat the hold especially for the animals. I know they also charge 100 pounds admin fee for the pleasure. Our friend got the ferry to France and drove down through France and Spain, he did it in quick time too, left on Friday morning and got to Jerez on Saturday morning (1500 miles), he said the drive down was amazing, across the mountains. Maybe it would be better to put the cat in the van??

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Mmmmm that is a good idea, we weren't sure how he'd cope with it, he's 15 (but seems about 15 months sometimes) so the van with us might be better.
Thanks for the info, there may be more questions flying your way soon!!!!

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

I'm taking ours in a car / van. If you speak to the vet they will be able to give the cat something that will sedate it so that the trip is not too traumatic. Make sure you carry a large mess tray :)

I couldn't put our cat through the trauma of going in the hold of an aircraft.

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Yes, I was thinking the same, but you're right about the large mess tray.
Good Luck with your viewing by the way!!! Wish we could get someone to look at ours!!!

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Has anyone considered buying a trailer or hiring one ??? I reckon you could get quite a lot in a decent trailer. There was a company called Trident trailers near Maidstone Kent that used to hire out all sorts of trailers, including horse boxes, and a Range Rover to tow them with. I needed to tow a boat some years ago when I discovered them, but a friend towed it for me with an old ambulance in the end. Probably cheaper on the ferry than a van, throw in a roof rack and I reckon you could move a lot !!

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

We have thought of getting a trailer but were worried about theft while we are travelling through France and Spain as we will have to do a few stopovers en route. But it is worth considering again.
Thanks

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Thats it ..... strap the cat to the roof rack and give it the ride of its life. I can just see the look on its little face when we stop for a tea break. Clinging to the rack with its little paws ... wouldn't need the mess tray though but god help the people following us :D

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Have a look at [url]www.tridenttrailers.com.[url] They seem to have a huge range.. perhaps you can get one with a lockable lid ??

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Have you seen the film doctor Doolittle with Eddie Murphy he puts his daughters Guinea pig in a cage strapped to the roof. First thing that came to mind after reading this. It is a very funny seen the said animal's face is stretched like its suffering from the g-force. Sorry not helpful to this particular thread but thought it was funny and wanted to share it.

I am shipping my two dogs over by car. The cost of sending them by BA is £600 plus some sort of handling fee of about £100 each cheaper to go by car and get a light sedative so they sleep most of the way.

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Like I said above, road/chunnel transport is a far better option for an elderly cat. Ours is 18 years old, also going on 18 months sometimes and the vet was very reticent to prescribe any sedatives and recommended against flying him over.

So, we put his cat box and cat bed in the back of the car, along with a bunch of our valuables that we didn't want to transport (Nissan Primera 5 door, rear seats down, wife and I in front) and set off.

The cat box was in case the cat got unruly, but we were hoping he would use his bed (more like a cat cave, really). As it turned out he didn't use either. He climbed ontop of the rear load, which was covered over with sleeping bags etc. and nestled in. Since the load was near to the car roof, he was well hidden, although he could see out the back, front and sides by crawling to different places strategically - or simply hide in the centre if the going got rough.

We stopped about every two to three hours, put a dog harness on him (cat harnesses are just too puny to fit an older cat), fed and watered him outside the car and took him for walks, where he did his thing, from time to time. We stopped at the quiet service areas, with plenty of trees and bushes. I would say that a mess tray was not needed at all and we didn't take one anyway. Generally, we found that the cat did not eat, or drink, much during the trip (we took dry and wet food).

The cat developed a liking for my (Driver's) footwell, every time we stopped and we did have a couple of occasions where he attempted to get into it when we were doing 90 mph down the motorway, but my wife kept him out. However, he did manage to claw my back once, whilst attempting to out-manouevre her.

Prior to the trip I took the cat out in the car nearly every day for two weeks, so that he would figure out that getting in the car did not mean thermometer up butt time :D

Stops during the journey were about 15/30 minutes for rest and pee breaks and 1/2 hours for power-snooze breaks, where the cat also had time to rest and nap, since most of the journey he was very alert whilst we were on the move.

We started out from the UK around 6 am, crossing the chunnel around 9 am, spending the night in the car in the Southern French mountains (in a blizzard with far too much snow to carry on driving), parking up at around 2 am the following day. That's where the sleeping bags came in real handy, keeping us warm until 6 am, when the blizzard had stopped and the snow ploughs were moving.

Sometime around mid-day, the cat had clearly settled-in to the routine - having experienced an early morning romp in the snow and blizzard, he obviously knew it couldn't get any worse ;) . By 8 pm that day we arrived at our destination in Murcia.

I have driven UK to Spain, via France, probably a dozen times (with minimal stops) and many years ago I promised myself I would never do it again. We did the Portsmouth Bilbao ferry and drive across Spain a couple of times after, but I decided to do the drive across France one last time for the sake of the cat and found it quite a reasonable trip, since the cat forced us to make regular stops and take regular breaks.

The most amusing memories I have of the trip are my wife pulling the cat off my shoulders, whilst I was trying drive and grit my teeth through the pain; the cat coming back into the car completely covered in snow; the cat clinging onto the sleeping bags, paws splayed out and swinging from side-to-side as we overtook other cars; and the look on people's faces as they say us go by with this cat looking out of the back window at them.

Re: Transporting worldly goods to Spain
 

Hi.!!

when we moved to south spain I spend weeks trying to find a company to ship over all as it was the cheapest option but I found out most of them would not do it to mainland spain!!! the lorries where off as you have to rent the all carriage, and they mix you up with all this different measures..etc...at the end we rented a huge van and did it ourselves it took us a day from the Uk to south Spain and bough all our valuables items... at least for us!!! The kids took a flight with their grandmother!!!quiet an adventure it was......