For those of you who’ve sent your kid across the country to go to school, how did you handle the logistics of getting their stuff there? Did you road trip it? Check a few very large bags when they flew? Mail large boxes? Have them buy new clothes at school? Tell them to get used to minimalism?
All of the options we’re looking at seem rather expensive.
Bedding, towels, anything that needs to be purchased for college (don’t over buy!), that is all easiest to ship it to the school; most colleges will have an arrival window of 7-14 days before 1st years arrive in which they’ll hold packages at the mail room to be picked up during move-in day.
(Alternatively, some people will have purchases shipped and held at a local big box store.)
*Include a box of laundry detergent with your purchases so that when you pick stuff up at the mailroom, you can go straight to the laundry room and wash the bedding and towels right away. (Make this the first thing you do in the morning, so you can wrangle a couple of machines and have it all done quickly.)
Inexpensively you can pack clothing within Ikea zippered duffles ($5) and put tape over the zippers and check it. Or if you happen to own enough large suitcases and there is another person traveling on the plane with the student, have their checked and carryon luggage allowance filled with the student’s items.
Those blue Ikea bags work really well for under bed storage during the year, and for summer storage in the dorms or at a storage unit.
We moved a kid to college in CA from CT. Two of us flew on Southwest when the two bags were checked for free. But even if we had to pay, I would still do it this way.
We had four large checked bags, a carryon each, and a personal item each.
My carryon had everything I needed for my four days there.
Her carryon had a few changes of clothes, things like makeup, glasses, contact lens stuff, toothbrush and some other small toiletries. And any medication she was taking.
My personal item was her computer bag with computer. Outside pocket had my wallet and identification etc.
Her personal item was a double instrument case that held an oboe and an English horn.
When we got to CA, we went shopping for sheets, pillow, pillow for desk chair, small printer, larger size toiletry items (shampoo, body wash, etc), mattress topper, and a small TV (this was 2006 before everyone just streamed everything).
The suitcases…they were old ones we had and a couple I bought at Goodwill. They were all thrown away after we unpacked. DD kept her carryon. I flew home with mine.
My motto was…we would pack what we could pack…and if we forgot something, there were stores there.
It helped that she needed no winter clothes that would have been a LOT bulkier.
It all worked out well. If you fly and rent a car, make sure you get one that has a large enough opening to the trunk to fit the suitcases through. Our rental was fine size wise but we couldn’t fit the suitcases into the trunk so we had to upgrade which was not a big deal.
I’m bummed that IKEA doesn’t seem to sell the zippered FRAKTAs any longer (at least in the US; Canada seems to still have them). We bought several in past years, and will use them into the ground, but the open-top FRAKTAs just aren’t the same. A bunch of resellers on Amazon sell them, but I’m not sure about them.
Hard NO on this. It’s a three day drive across this country…each way. We flew.
They’ve been recently restocked here in Portland - maybe check to see if your local has them again? They were out for quite awhile!
(I agree, the open top aren’t as useful, however my kiddo did use an open top one as his laundry bag as it was easier to carry up and down several flights of stairs than a basket.)
Oh, great tip! Looks like none of our nearby stores have them, but I’ll keep an eye out!
We did the minimalism route for one child (4 bags total on flight, including the personal item). Only way it was workable was basically a capsule wardrobe (everything could be mixed, matched and layered). Five pairs of shoes (shower shoes, trainers, dress shoes, hiking boots, Tevas). Also, that child used a linens rental program for their bedding/towels and ordered some stuff (electric kettle, mattress topper, fan etc) from Amazon.
The other cross country child was again 4 bags on the flight, several large packages waiting for pickup at the school mail room, an enormous pick up order from big box store (including mini fridge), as well as a large pick up order from The Container Store. So. Much. Stuff. Definitely rent a minivan as a car if you go that route.
I’ve gotten knock offs on Amazon that have been fine.
These bags are better than the IKEA ones, IMO they are sturdier.
I would get on the school FB page and ask. My niece went to University of Colorado and was able to ship everything to the school and have it waiting in her room when she got there. My son went to Colorado State and we weren’t allowed to ship anything ahead of time. We flew out with 4 IKEA bags of clothes and got everything else at the well stocked Target when we got there.
I think a lot of it depends on the school policies and what stores are available nearby. I was happy that we did the fly out with bags and stock up when we got there. IT was pretty seamless. Rooms are small and Amazon delivers anywhere. As long as they have the necessities to start they’ll be fine.
We flew 1st class to get extra luggage for “free” (Three suitcases included in price for each ticket, with a heavier weight limit of 70 lbs for first class, versus 50 lbs for economy).
We now have 9 of these collapsible wheeled suitcases, which are great: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BB6M3Z74?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_5&th=1
We also ordered a number of items via Amazon and had them shipped directly to her campus mail center.
Send your child the message “Less is More” in every way you can. One of my kids packed before she lft for the summer and everything fit in the trunk of my Honda Accord. Well, I think one duffel went on the back seat but we has to have a small bag for us in the car, plus her sister. Daughter flew in to a nearby airport, I picked her up and she moved in. We . bought a few things (like a small towel for the work out room).
Her sister brought everything she owned. Everything. We’d flown to Colorado a few times that summer and took duffels with her hockey gear, clothing (including a lot of winter clothing), 10k pairs of shoes to go with her million sundresses (that she wore for a week and then it was winter) and stored it all at her grandmother’s house. We did one Walmart run and then I left.
put bedding in boxes and checked it, so we knew it would arrive when we did. Ditto, a few days worth of clothes. Shipped everything else Fedex/UPS Ground. And shipped to the hotel where we stayed for check in, and scheduled the stuff to arrive at the hotel before we did. And hit the local Target which is always well-stocked with a bunch of dorm-related stuff.
Sure, you can ship direct to school, but then so do thousand of others, and the mail room can get backed up so pick up could be days later
Since I was staying in a hotel, DD stayed with me the first night. Then we went shopping the next day for the sheets (and the other stuff).
We were very direct…whatever didn’t fit in the four large checked bags, and the carry on bags simply wasn’t going to be there immediately. Really, DD didn’t ask us to ship anything additional from home. She put the essentials in those four bags.
She is a pack light person.
And just jumping ahead a little. One of the best perks having a kid across country is they put all their stuff in storage at the college town…and it doesn’t end up in your living room all summer!
When DD flew home, it was with her carry on and a backpack. For winter break, her winter clothes were all here anyway. And for summer, she really didn’t need too much that was bulky.
You’ve gotten lots of great advice on how to get all the stuff there - remember it has to go somewhere over each summer (back home and/or storage). Good luck!
When our son went off to boarding school 2,500 miles away from home, he flew with a roller bag and a backpack onboard and checked one large suitcase. We shipped his bedding, electronics, and instrument directly to the school. Everything else (small room fan, laundry supplies, school supplies, etc.) was purchased from the school store, the local Walmart, or ordered from Amazon after he got there. The school told students to pack like they were going to grandma’s house for a couple of weeks — do NOT overpack (girls, we’re looking at you). We used Parents Weekend in October to bring the winter clothes and take back the summer clothes and anything else he no longer needed.
When school was out, he used a company that provided boxes, tape, labels, etc. to pack up his stuff and store for the summer. He just left the boxes in his room and hopped a flight home. The company picked them up, and they magically re-appeared in his (new) room the following year. They would even deliver to his college if he hadn’t chosen a service academy. For the academy, this is the sum total of what he brought:
We moved my son to TX from CT. We were not able to ship to the school ahead of time like mentioned above. So, at orientation I opened a small storage unit and shopped for a bunch while he was in orientation (bedding, towels, storage pieces, etc)…When we got home from orientation we were able to mail stuff to the storage facility and that was a life saver.
Flew business or southwest (old days) to get 4 suitcases (1 for me traveling and 3 for D). Bedding etc bought at destination/ordered online and held at store (bed bath and beyond/target, or delivered by ikea). When D came home for breaks would bring back clothing that was going out of season and take back clothes for the next season. Put bedding and some other stuff like lamps in storage over summer between dorms.
When I moved off to college last fall, my family and I packed as little as possible on our persons. The only things we brought were things we otherwise wouldn’t be able to purchase at a Walmart, Target, or on Amazon. This includes clothes, my instrument, medications, and a few personal items here and there. I will note one important thing was: University mail offices sometimes allow items to be shipped there. I was alerted via my university email that I could ship items to W&L beginning on a specific date - that saved us a lot of headaches.
I agree with the above posters about “less is more.” It certainly made it easier to coordinate and pack what items went where and had us only need to check one singular bag beyond our carry-ons. While it may have cost us more as we bought most of our items once we arrived in VA, there wasn’t as much stress of “did I forget something at home,” and having to turn around to get it. I will admit - my dorm in my freshmen year was very… barren to put it. (my friends and I joked about the lack of excessive decorations), and not needing a bunch of decorations or memorbilia may have impacted our way of thinking when we started packing.
I will note that a lot of this may be back and forth about what to bring if a person’s kid wants to bring a lot. If you’re going to be flying, it may be a tough conversation about what they can feasibly bring without having to consider cross-country shipping. Road-tripping may offer a bit more flexibility, but only if you’re comfortable with the distance & duration.
For context, my family and I flew from TX to VA, and then drove about an hour in a rental to my university. The combination of our bags and the few items we picked up from Walmart fit comfortably within the hatchback. Restating, check if the University allows students to send packages to their mail office (large universities probably dont, but smaller ones may). Having 80% of my stuff be sent straight to the University mail office from Amazon, Target, and more made it much easier to move if you’re ordering items online like we did.
@HKDad1 Anything else you recall about our trek to VA?
