Moving Grad-Students and their Stuff Across Canada

February 3, 2008 3:59 PM

Moving Grad-Students: Two of us are moving back to Ontario from Edmonton, Alberta. We need to ship ourselves and our stuff. Options include: buy a (cheapish) car/van and drive (we'd sell it upon arrival), one-way van rental (rather expensive?), fly and ship our stuff (Greyhound?). Any wisdom much appreciated.

We have one apartment's worth of stuff (some IKEA tables, chairs, vacuum cleaner, etc.). We'll be selling some of it I expect, but want to keep some too. We'd be up for a cross-country adventure, but are also sensitive to costs, etc.

posted by rumbles to travel & transportation (12 comments total)

Honestly, I'd sell as much as you can, ship what little is worth it (i.e., books, CDs, etc.) and pitch the rest. You can get IKEA tables again one day without the hassle of moving it across country.
posted by cajo at 4:01 PM on February 3, 2008

Try selling your IKEA stuff on craiglist or something similar before you leave and then picking up similar furniture from craigslist where you'll end up. A lot of people do that before and/or after moving, so you won't end up stranded and cursing the day you sold your $80 couch. (grad student here)
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 4:08 PM on February 3, 2008

buy a (cheapish) car/van and drive

This reminds me of a story that I can now laugh about. I went to work in Alaska with a couple of friends, at a national park when I was 18 years old. I went up there kind of late; I was there for about a month and a half before the season was over. When the season was over, we picked up some extra work up the highway for a couple weeks and at that point, I was ready to head down to Washington or Nevada. My two friends were ready to leave too, but plane tickets were out of our budget. So what do we do?? Buy a VW Golf from the Salvation Army, of course. Didn't even go in reverse. Our idea? We are going to drive from Anchorage to /somewhere/ in the lower 48. Now we have about $500, 3 people, and their shit all packed in to a VW Golf. This is November 2001 mind you; 2 months after 9/11. Ok... getting tot he point. We drove from Anchorage to the Canadian border. Get there and the first thing they ask us is 'How much currency do you guys have?' About $500 is our answer. '$500 each?,' they ask. No.. More like $448.73. 'Sorry, you cannot enter Canada.' Seems they didn't want us getting stranded in their country and becoming their problem. Ok. Whatever. We turn around and start heading up to Fairbanks. Not but 5 miles into Fairbanks (actually the parking lot of the 'Northenest-Most Denny's in the World) the cluch gives and we are dead in the water. Over the next couple days we secure more work and shelter. I ended up buying a single plane ticket about 2 weeks later. I know another friend made it back to the lower 48, but the third one of us was still up there last I heard from him.

I doubt your situation is this extreme, and hopefully you have emergency outlets. We were young and traveling the states anyways. It wasn't really a matter of life or death if we didn't make it to our destination, more of just a set-back.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 4:22 PM on February 3, 2008

There was a similar question not so long ago.

I wouldn't recommend buying a van just to do the drive. There are a lot of costs: you'll have to pay to register and insure the car in Ontario and then cancel those when you get to Alberta, you run the risk of expensive repairs, you'll pay hundreds of dollars in gas, and you face the hassle of selling the van in Alberta (and you'll probably need to have it inspected in order for your buyer to register it in Alberta). I've done a very similar move where I bought a car in QC and drove to BC. It was a major hassle and I don't think it would be worth it if you didn't want to keep the vehicle.
posted by ssg at 4:25 PM on February 3, 2008

IG and cajo have the right idea.

For the cost of a few days' moving truck rental, you can buy enough brand-spanking-new IKEA furniture to refurnish a small apartment. If you sell the stuff you've got, and buy used when you get to Ontario, it'll skew the balance even farther in your favor. Moving trucks are for rich people whose stuff is expensive or irreplaceable, not for IKEA-dwellers like us.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:31 PM on February 3, 2008

If you care about your stuff, don't ship it Greyhound. (GPX - Greyhound Package Express.)

I've travelled a lot on Greyhound, and I've seen how they handle the packages they ship. It's pretty rough.

GPX seems to be more for fast-run services that's cheaper than air shipping. They seem to ship a lot of dry-ice packed food and/or medical products.

Getting rid of lots of stuff through craigslist is a great idea. You can often re-acquire the same exact stuff for nearly the same price. Sometimes less, if you're willing to work for it. It's like free shipping, or shipping that pays for itself.

If you're truly hard core, you could possibly even reduce the things you truly wanted to keep to a set of luggage and just go for it.

If not, and you can afford the gas and rental - a moving van or larger rented car/van is often the best way for a small move like this.
posted by loquacious at 4:32 PM on February 3, 2008

If you have lots of books, "printed media" or "library" rate shipping via Canada Post or USPS is actually pretty good. It was a lot faster than I expected and really didn't cost too much.

Yeah, Freecyle or Craigslist as much stuff junk as you can find in the cockles of your heart to give up.

Besides, I know one of you is pining for new kitchen stuff...
posted by porpoise at 4:53 PM on February 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Basically, you need to figure out how much money you can get for ALL your stuff, and weigh that against how much more it would cost to bring it with you. Make sure both figures are realistic. Also figure out what it would cost to ship it all, vs. taking it yourself.

Assuming you'd be traveling north of L. Superior to avoid crossing the border, keep in mind that chances are it's faster to get where you're going via the States. The faster you get to your destination, the less you spend on gas. Crossing the border? Not with all your stuff in the back of a van, you're not.

As for renting vs. buying, AFAIK, most rental companies have territories that they don't let you cross out of (check around, since I really know that's true down east here), and beyond a couple of days, a U-Haul can get crazy expensive -- about the price of a used cargo van -- and that's not counting the gas.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:57 PM on February 3, 2008

In my experience, Greyhound is cheapest for shipping within the same provice but not cross-country. A 60 lb. box from Toronto to Edmonton was far more expensive with Greyhound then any other option (other than express/overnight). Plus Greyhound's insurance costs several times as much.

Sell everything other than stuff that has sentimental value or is really expensive.

If you have enough to fill a van or truck then renting a U-Haul (or Ryder, etc.) is your least expensive option.

But I'd say that, being students, you might be able to pare down enough to take it all in your airline baggage. With what you save in moving costs plus what you sold the old furniture for, you can probably buy a lot of Ikea furniture at the new location.
posted by winston at 4:59 PM on February 3, 2008

When I moved back to Ontario from Vancouver, I shipped all my books, CDs, etc. + a desktop computer, monitor and laser printer + a bike via Fedex. I think the total cost came out to about $250, with $80 of that being the bike (plus $20 to get a local shop to box it up for me). Then I stuffed all my clothes into a suitcase and flew to Toronto. Everything else I had already sold on Craigslist (rather quickly, I might add—the key is to take photos, price everything fairly cheaply, and demand that people come to you to pick stuff up) or with the help of my lovely building manager, who I swear must've had his own black market economy using small bills and cases of beer as currency.

The bike probably could've gone on the plane in hindsight, but I was wary of the whole "subject to availability" clause and really didn't want to risk leaving the bike behind. If you decide to fly, check with the airline.
posted by chrominance at 5:02 PM on February 3, 2008

Not sure how much they are, but have you looked in to Pods? I have a friend that moves somewhat regularly due to her husband's occupation and they swear by them.
posted by dancinglamb at 6:14 PM on February 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

This will be more of the same but I highly recommend selling what you can before you move. During my cross-country move I sold most of the furniture and then packed books and some clothes in boxes to be shipped via the mail. I chose things that I didn't need for awhile so it could be the cheapest mail rate.
posted by mcroft at 4:14 AM on February 4, 2008