Re: Moving to US...the actual moving bit
 

Most likely Manchester or possibly Liverpool. The only direct flights I've found to Boston in the 2 years we were LDR are from places further afield (London) and it's not worth the travel to get there to get a direct flight. I need to change my location actually, I'm not in Leeds any more. In the past I've flown from Manchester or Liverpool to Boston via Zurich, Amsterdam and Philadephia and seen flights via Ireland, Iceland, London and other US cities.

Once there, my father in law is picking us up from the airport in his bus...er, car so that's not a problem, no matter what we take with us.

The dimensions of every bag we own are within airline limits. If we booked an extra bag each, that's 6 suitcases which is plenty and I weigh my bags as I'm packing to make sure we're under weight but have never even come close to weight limits in the past (even with my camping gear or the Christmas presents for the whole family etc). I distribute the weight evenly to avoid going over limits and to make them easier to carry/pull and we aren't taking particularly much stuff heavy stuff. Unless I do a trial run of packing, I'm not going to know what the size and weight is but I'd estimate that 6 cases would be too much space.

Would a better idea of the amount of stuff we're taking help? For example, you can fit every item of clothing and every shoe that I have in the UK into a hand-luggage size bag WITHOUT vacuum bagging it.

Re: Moving to US...the actual moving bit
 

I know using a shipping company doesn't really appeal to you, but they might be worth researching in terms of convenience (door-to-door) and pricing you'll save from extra taxis, added help and baggage allowance (it all adds up). PSS removals were great when my sister moved to North Carolina.

Re: Moving to US...the actual moving bit
 

If you have an address in the US that you can send stuff to, then a simple service to send a couple of boxes of odds and ends is useful. I used transglobalexpress.co.uk who actually broker the different international mailing companies - think I used UPS through them in the end and it was pretty good value. As has been said, you need to know dimensions and weight.

When I actually moved, I just paid for excess baggage - I did 2 trips though, so on one I brought a load of clothes and my golf clubs and on the other, the remainder of my clothes/belongings in 2 cases. Each time was an extra $100 for the extra bag (with US Air).

Re: Moving to US...the actual moving bit
 

I agree it would be convenient for the most part, the part that doesn't appeal is the possibility of having to wait weeks or months for the stuff to arrive.
This is why I'm considering extra baggage allowance, mailing some stuff in boxes or a combination of the 2.

We're taking all our combined suitcases anyway (2 large, 1 med, 1 small and I'm debating buying 1 more large one) because we have to get them all home and what won't go in the cases really won't add up to a lot of stuff so it would be a bit overboard to do the ship or shrink-wrapped pallet option.

The in-laws place in the US is where all my husbands stuff and a fair bit of my stuff is, right now. They take mail for both of us, too. The plan is to live there when we move then buy the house from them and they're fine with us using it as storage since both me and my husband have our own rooms there.
Simple service, couple of boxes of odds and ends, it's as though you know!
All my boxes are the same size and weight of the few I've packed is 4-6kg each but I do have a few more boxes still to go. For the sake of estimating, I'd assume more boxes than I have and that they'd all weigh 5kg.

If you'd recommend that site, I'll give them a go and also try UPS - it won't hurt to look. There's a DHL area in a stationers near me (just found it) where you can weigh and get estimates for boxes so when I can be bothered carrying a box into town, I'll take one and see what they say for about 8 boxes of that size.

I'm expecting it to be a couple of hundred quid to get all our stuff from A to B (just the stuff that isn't in the cases with us, I'm counting the flights and the stuff in our checked bags as separate).


I've also heard tell of a service where you can have our suitcase picked up from your house and delivered to your destination so you don't have to take it with you. It would be more expensive than taking that case as an extra checked bag BUT it would be far easier than trying to move 5 cases if I buy another big one. Anyone used this service or have any thoughts on it?
My boxes are quite small, the suitcase I've found would take 3 or 4 boxes worth of stuff.

Re: Moving to US...the actual moving bit
 

We should be leaving the end of this month so I now have a much better idea of what's what.

At present, we have 4 large and 1 small-ish suitcase going with us (plus 1 hand luggage each) as the airline we've chosen allows 2 cases per passenger but we can't sensibly carry any more cases between us.
We're fine getting it all to the airport, it's been taken care of. 1 case is packed and locked, ready to go. My clothes and shoes take exactly 1 hand-luggage bag when vacuum bagged, as do my daughter's. My husband's things are going to be TARDISed into his 1 large and 1 smallish suitcase then his laptop, some books and 1 last lot of clothes are going in his backpack. The final suitcases have things shoved in that I know we won't need again and 'll be packing them properly in the next few days then filling the last space of the last case as we get closer to the day we go.

I've found some better boxes than I had originally, bigger and much stronger so now have 4 boxes of around 10kg each. This is mostly the monster's toys, the mister's books and a few odds and ends.

Thankyou very much Captainsensible for the suggestion, I'll be using UPS via transglobal to have the boxes taken door to door and saving me some hassle, all for under £150

Looking at what we have, I under-estimated the weight of the boxes slightly but was right in thinking we wouldn't have that much to move.

I'm also a big fan of whoever invented vacuum bags.