How to Shed Possessions and Ship Boxes
Everyone who has traveled nomadically has warned us to take as little as possible, or even less. And we tried, whole—half-heartedly. But for various reasons….we left with this for three people:
Two 40lb check-ins, three carry-ons and 3 personal items
Just how ill-conceived this was became clear when we got to our comically cramped London flat. Just to give you an idea of the size of the place, this was our bathroom sink:
So…walking around the bags and suitcases, much less finding anything across the multitude of them quickly, became a nightmare.
To be fair, we had so much baggage in part because we simply didn’t have enough time to sort the necessary from the nice-to-haves before leaving. So, one of the many things we had to do in London - instead of writing this blog - is sort stuff and then ship the discards home.
We ended up filtering out almost 20lb which allowed us to cut a full-sized check in suitcase (bye bye sweatshirts and Nintendo Switch with your giant charger). So, the day before leaving London, I embarked on sending this stuff back home without blowing through our entire travel budget. A quick google search revealed a whole cottage industry of international shipping intermediaries (of which I chose Interparcel, with decent reviews on trustpilot.com). The entire function of these companies appears to be buying wholesale shipping services from the likes of UPS and Fedex and passing on the savings to the consumer. They sent me a Fedex shipping label for half the price on the official fedex site and I was off to the races.
Specifically, the races to print the label and then find a larger enough box, shipping tape and a drop off point. Because it turns out, there isn’t a Staples or Office depot on every corner in Notting Hill. One tiny fedex shop, after some digging, did uncover such a box and packing tape.
Phew, time for an ice cream gelato break! I’m known to be picky about ice cream, and other things, but the raspberry at Snowflake gelato was stupendous.
It would seem that with box and label in hand, and a drop off point suggested by Interparcel a block from our apartment, we were basically done; so naive.
That evening, the day before we would take a train to Paris, I rolled the suitcase toward the drop-off point, with the still-flat box in the other hand (easier to roll a suitcase than carry a 20lb box).
As the suitcase cheerfully bounced on the cobblestones block after block (it’s a quarter mile walk, I’m not getting a damn cab!), I fantasized about getting a pastry on the way back, sans-box and carefree.
When I got to the corner liquor store (the drop off point) the clerk shattered my illusions - “you want to ship THAT? No, no! We have five kilogram weight limit.” After trying to call other local shops, Interparcel and Fedex, I realized that we would have to drop it off to a proper Fedex store in the morning, on our way to the train station. Turns out Interparcel draws the line at collecting any information about drop off points beyond location - the only thing they do is give you the bulk discount.
Luckily, the new plan worked out just fine as we had a mid-day train, and the box made it to its destination in under a week. So, on balance, we’ll call that a win.
