While moving from one home to another in the same city can be stressful, moving from one side of the country to the other is a whole new issue. Not only do you have to get yourself thousands of miles, but you have to pack up your entire life and bring it with you.
Luckily, there are some things you can do to make this process easier on yourself. To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for executing a cross-country move.
Figure Out What You Can Rent
For most people, they aren’t going to be able to move their entire life using just the resources that they already have. Knowing this, you’re going to want to look into what items you’ll need to facilitate your move and how you can go about getting them.
While you can purchase equipment, unless you plan on making another big move in the future, it probably makes more sense to just rent a commercial truck and other moving items. Or, if you’re not interested in doing the actual moving yourself, Mariam White, a contributor to Moving.com, recommends that you look into renting portable moving containers that you can up on your own and then have shipped to your new home. And as you prepare your belongings to be moved, you may also want to rent things like a hand truck, a moving dolly, and other packing supplies.
Consider Drastically Downsizing
Generally, the fewer items you have to move with you across the country, the easier and less expensive your move will be. As a result, you may want to consider drastically downsizing your life before you start your big move.
To do this, Sara Elliott, a contributor to How Stuff Works, advises that you put all of your belongings into four categories: keep it, sell it, give it away, and trash it. The more items that you put in the last three categories, the less stuff you’ll have to pay to move or store as you make your move to a new part of the country.
Pack Items Carefully
For the items that you decide to keep and take with you across the country, you’ll likely want to take a little extra care when packing everything up.
If you were moving just a short distance, how you pack your belongings won’t really be a big deal. But when you’ll be moving thousands of miles over multiple days, Updater.com shares that you’ll want to pack everything so that there’s almost no possible way for things to get broken or thrown around, since spending more time on the road increases the chances of something shifting.
If you’re planning to move across the country soon, consider using the tips mentioned above as you plan and prepare for this new adventure.
