Our international move felt like it took five months. I guess it did as we made the decision to move back to Canada in January but didn’t leave the Isle of Man until June. That’s a lot of weekends to come up with things to do other than get the house ready for your move.
What I learned from doing most of the paperwork and box packing and home purging and selling of furniture all by myself:
- if you can, avoid moving when you have young children
- if you can, make sure your spouse isn’t working right up until departure
- avoid having three of five people in your family contract a vomiting bug the week of departure
- and always, always, always, purge your stuff like mad before you start packing
Due to young children, fatigue and feet dragging, we had a lot of purging to do in the weeks leading up to the move. It was hard. We just bought most of our home wares and all of our furniture the previous summer. Obviously it was not on our radar that we would be leaving the island within the year. Related: so happy I bought most of our furniture second hand! We set a goal of selling and giving away all of our furniture and anything that did not fit into our checked luggage and 20 moving boxes.
International shipping is expensive. Our 20 boxes were filled with things that we used regularly and that were worth more than the shipping price. Clothing, beloved and expensive toys, books, a few soft furnishings like my favourite wool blanket and half of our kitchen items. Shippers and movers calculate moving costs based on volume – not weight. So big items like pillows that took up lots of space but didn’t cost a lot to buy weren’t shipped.
Should you pay for the movers to pack for you or do self-pack? If we weren’t paying for this move ourselves I would have loved to have the movers pack for us. But this move was on our dime so I packed 15 of the boxes myself and had the movers pack our breakables, kitchen wear and framed art and photos. I self-packed breakables when we moved to the UK and didn’t have a lot of success with things staying unbroken.
Packing for yourself is more work but it gives you another window to declutter. Do we really need that? Is it worth the shipping cost? I kept very detailed lists of what was in every box, both to give to the movers and for my own records, and this helped weed things down even more. When it feels like a chore to write a description of the item on a list maybe you don’t really need it.
Set a goal or limit for the amount you want to move and stick to it. I said I wanted to ship a certain number of boxes plus max out our baggage allowance (it was basically free shipping) and we did that. As I packed and tallied what I wanted to keep and how much room we had, I made choices for what stayed with us and what was donated or sold or given away to friends. I’ve said it before on here: give yourself limits.
My best international move tip: build in some breathing room for your body and mind. We booked in for a two day ‘staycation’ in the Isle of Man right before departing. The movers had picked up our boxes, we had handed the keys back on our rental place and all of our big move tasks were done. We spent our two days resting, getting fresh air and saying farewell to our home of four years. I think it set us up for an easier return journey than if we had had the movers come and go one morning and packed ourselves off for a flight the same day. Go slow to go fast!
The finally tally for our moves:
- We left Canada for the UK in the spring of 2011 with 14 boxes, 3 suitcases, and a single stroller for three people.
- We returned from the UK in the spring of 2015 with 21 boxes, 6 suitcases, one travel crib, and a double stroller for five people.
One of the reasons we have more coming back with us is not only that we have two more people but we know what we are moving into. We kept our Vancouver condo and rented it out for the last four years. It was a good move to rent it out instead of sell it in 2011 – the housing market here is still very hot. So we have, sigh, another unfurnished home to move into. We left a few boxes with family when we moved overseas but we, once again, have no furniture and will be furnishing a home from scratch. Craigslist here I come!
What are your best moving tips for families or for big moves?
Welcome back to Canada! I just returned from a trip to Vancouver, my home town–it’s so beautiful—I miss it so!!! Instead of Craigslist, check out #Varagesale. It’s a new site created by an Ontarian teacher. I like the UI-much easier on the eyes than Craigslist and Kijiji!!! https://www.varagesale.com/press#multimedia
We have only lived in 1 house in our 12 years of marriage. However, we want to move out family of 3 to the Caribbean!! We have a rule when we purchase anything, and it’s would you pay to move it??? You really stop and think about the purchase beforehand. We are doing the slow purge, not sure when our big move will be. Thank you for some of the tips and ideas!!
Great rule, Ramona!
Welcome home!
Now I put myself in your situation mentally and with a little devision decided the equivalent boxes I would need to do the same. Hum, I’d need five. Yikes. It makes your move all the more impressive to me. So…what size boxes did you use? 🙂 Seriously, I am curious, I want to challenge myself here.
Growing up, until I was in my late teens, my family moved 18 times in three different countries, different continents. Purging of course is the ideal but I look back at what my dear mother went through and packing with a family is an extra challenge. No wonder the stress of a move is right up there with a death or divorce. I also tried to look at the purging and packing this way – if I had ten minutes to evacuate the house in some imagined emergency, and could only take some special things, what would they be? Not counting the obvious like family and pets, important documents, an “armageddon bag”, etc. It helped put a few items in perspective, at least for me it did. When I was culling and purging sentimental stuff, often just having a picture of the item was enough too.
The burden of clutter and possessions can feel like luggage that you have to drag around even if only mentally.
It was a mix of medium and large boxes. Not sure of the exact size as we are still awaiting the final bill which will show us how many cubic feet we sent. Maria – five for one person is impressive! The amount of household items doesn’t seem to increase in proportion to people. One pot feeds 1 or 5 people. I would struggle to get to five if it was just me.
Armageddon bag: hmmm… I think with having everything backed up online I would just grab our accordion folder of important documents. It has a few sentimental things tucked in it and I really loathe paperwork so it would be great to not lose everyone’s passports,etc.
Cheers Rachel and thank you. You are so gracious. Okay, my fives boxes would not be small boxes, but still I’m trying to reach that amount. You make an excellent point about household items for one or five. Still, I ponder, living alone, would I be able to pack up my place in one day if I had to move. I want to get to that “imagined” scenario so then I will know whatever I do have, is what I need, use and want. Frustrating to pack to move and find things you saved because you didn’t think you could live without them – and promptly forgot about them when you put them away in that safe place…
I would also include a portable backup drive that stores everything on the computer and scans of important documents – I’d grab that in an emergency too. I also have a folder of important documents too, handy and easy to grab if required.
Welcome home again.
We’re currently staying with family as we wait for your new house to be ready for move-in. Thankfully, most of our stuff fit in a fairly small storage unit. I’m looking forward to decluttering as we unpack. 🙂 It was good having time away from most of our things… some things stuck out as being gone, but I think a lot of them weren’t too badly missed.
May I ask which moving company you used? My family of 3 will be moving from the UK to the US. Luckily we have only lived here for one year, so we haven’t accumulated too much stuff, let alone two extra people 😉
We are moving locally in a few weeks’ time. I have purged a lot of things but still feel overwhelmed by all of our stuff. We are downsizing and I have done most of the packing on my own for our family of five. I know it is better to purge before you move but I am hoping that more will go as we unpack. I do not want to live in a cluttered and stuffed space!
Having moved from the U.S. to Japan and back then again from the U.S. to London and back then again to Japan and back, these tips are right on. My first international move was with no kids, to London with a baby then back with a toddler and a new baby then to Japan with a preschooler and a toddler and purging is the most useful thing to do when moving international. Enjoy your new life!
Totally off topic, but the first thing I noticed about this is your white pants!!! You are so brave to travel in white pants, never mind travel with white pants AND three children 😉 Glad the move went well and hopefully we will cross paths again sometime soon. Enjoy rediscovering your home city all over again!
Welcome back!
We have moved 4 times in the last five years, and are currently downsizing from our 1800 square foot townhouse to my parent’s basement (750 square feet) and then plan to build in the spring. In the past we have had boxes that have moved from one place to the next and never been opened. But this time, I’m getting rid of EVERYTHING that we aren’t going to use in my parent’s house beside a few expensive kitchen items. We are selling all of the furniture that we aren’t using and cutting the kid’s clothes (we have four) in half…it is liberating and I know it will be fun to furnish our new home when we get there (with Craigslist’s finds like you! 🙂 You are always inspiring, THANK YOU, I feel less crazy for getting rid of everything when I read stories like this!
Good luck with this big move and your time living with your parents! I agree, it is liberating to let go of all those things. Liberating but hard work!
Off topic, but what baby carrier is it that you’re wearing in the photo? I am looking to purchase one and that looks both comfortable and attractive!
In the top photo it’s a Tula baby carrier. They are very good and a great investment (hold their value for resale). In the bottom photo I am wearing an Ergo carrier – also really good but ours got so much use over five years that it was falling apart by baby #3. The Tula has a longer body length than the Ergo which I have found very comfortable for my tall heavy third baby.
Thank you! My Ergo wasn’t super comfortable past a certain point so I sold it after my 5th boy. But baby #6 is our first girl and I’m looking for pretty & practical this time around! I don’t think there will be any more babies after this, so knowing Tula holds its value is very helpful! Thanks again!
Big undertaking to do an international move with a family. Sounds like you did a great job!
The move sounds like it went smoothly. We do local moves mostly although have done 2 moves 4 hours away from where we were living. We are in our 7th place in our 7 year’s of marriage. Keeping the amount of stuff we keep to a minimum helps a lot. We have a small coffee table for the kids computer, we use it as a sitting desk. We have a few folding tables and chairs as well as an ottoman as our furniture. Sitting all day in chairs is bad for your body so we have our house set up to get us moving. We also use bed rolls or Japanese futons depending on the person so we don’t have to move beds. Next year we are planning a move that is 2500 miles away. We will most likely just give most of what we own away, ship a few boxes of books to oIurselves too. Buying new to us used stuff would cost less than moving everything. Heck replacing everything we own with brand new stuff would only cost around $3,000.
Moving once a year! Okay, you have experience with this 🙂
I’m considering using bedrolls/futons for our older two children. Their room is quite small and I would like it to be a play room – a twin bunk bed would take up at least a third of the room.
When my boys were little, we put a mattress on the floor, then end of it sticking in a tent, they loved it!!! Playroom and sleeping room. Kids can sleep on anything. Welcome home!!!!
They are great for making rooms dual purpose like that. Our 4 & 6 year old children really loved the sunken room that our current rental has. We let them sleep in there, they roll up their beds daily and it becomes our school room during the school hours and then later the play room.
I haven’t made an international move, but I have made several cross country moves and many local moves over the years. I think you hit my biggest tips: declutter, declutter, declutter. Take the opportunity to weed out anything you don’t absolutely love and don’t use regularly. It’s always amazing to me how things tend to accumulate or multiply between moves.
My husband’s tip would be don’t marry a writer: they have too many books that constitute dear items that they don’t want to purge before a move. ::wink::