best freight shipping options Toronto to Brooklyn

July 31, 2018 5:56 PM

I got rid of all of my furniture and am now moving to New York from Toronto. I can bring two suitcases. I don't have much stuff. What's my best (i.e. most reliable, punctual, and cheap) freight shipping option?

All of my stuff will amount to about just one pallet.

I'd prefer to pay extra for someone to palletize my stuff, rather than doing it myself.

The stuff I have that I will ship, generally speaking, include:
1) about 150 books (I HAVE to bring them with me, this is not negotiable)
2) about 3 banker boxes of textile (clothes, beddings)
3) 5 boxes of small kitchen stuff, lamps, small household objects.
4) a bike which I could ship seperately.

Everything could fit into an SUV, but I don't drive.

Is there a freight company that specialize in something like that?

Also, how do I estimate the weight of all of these things? Is there a good website?

posted by redwaterman to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

You might try uship.com, a sort of marketplace for random small shipping jobs. It’s free to make a listing and carriers then make bids on the job. I shipped a motorcycle from Toronto to Vancouver and a friend had one shipped from California to Minnesota via the site. This is sort of like eBay/Uber but for moving your stuff, so caveat emptor and all that.

Also the usual suspects, like Purolator, FedEx, UPS, and DHL all do LTL (Less than Truck Load, ie a pallet) freight in addition to parcels, but you might have to actually talk to a rep to get a quote.
posted by rodlymight at 6:28 PM on July 31, 2018

My daughter mov d from NYC to California last year and found that the cheapest thing to do was to pack up about 15 boxes of stuff and send them by FedEx ground.
posted by SLC Mom at 7:01 PM on July 31, 2018

You could use a relo cube from U-Pack. SWe used them to move a 1 bed apartment from Brooklyn to San Francisco and they process was really smooth. The support team were absolutely outstanding. It might have more space than you need.

U-Pack is run by ABF freight who also do LTL. I'd recommend them any time.
posted by rollinson at 6:06 PM on August 1, 2018