Experience/ Advice sea container shipping of belongings

[Frogman]

Hi guys,

I haven't seen a thread on this topic, so I thought I would start one. Has anybody had any experience in recent years with container, shipping one's possessions from Europe to the US? To be honest I am between two minds. A small volume say a create or a 20 foot container. Does anyone know pricing for this, pros cons & tips? Was thinking of a trucking service to bring it to the harbor and collect it at Port at say... San Diego if that was possible.

 

[vladek15425]

Hi guys,

I haven't seen a thread on this topic, so I thought I would start one. Has anybody had any experience in recent years with container, shipping one's possessions from Europe to the US? To be honest I am between two minds. A small volume say a create or a 20 foot container. Does anyone know pricing for this, pros cons & tips? Was thinking of a trucking service to bring it to the harbor and collect it at Port at say... San Diego if that was possible.

I think simon has all the infos you need !
Just wait for his input

 

[Britsimon]

Hi guys,

I haven't seen a thread on this topic, so I thought I would start one. Has anybody had any experience in recent years with container, shipping one's possessions from Europe to the US? To be honest I am between two minds. A small volume say a create or a 20 foot container. Does anyone know pricing for this, pros cons & tips? Was thinking of a trucking service to bring it to the harbor and collect it at Port at say... San Diego if that was possible.

Yeah we just did that in our recent move (UK to San Francisco). We had a firm come and pack for us in the UK (them packing supposedly made the customs process "safer"). THey took our possesions and charged us per cubic foot. Ours was a partial container so it was "consilidated" in the UK where they get two or three shipments and put them in a shared 20ft or 40ft container. We started out with the concept of just shipping some artwork and a few personal bits and pieces. As the clock ran down we included more and more in the shipping - in the en even including a few bits of wooden furniture that we had previously planned to leave in our house (since we were renting that to a friend). The total cost was around $6000. It took around 3 months to get here (the consolidation adding a few weeks. That cost covered the cost of packing, shipping, insrance and delivery and unpacking into our home.

In the end a few things got broken en route. We had insurance to cover that - but some things are more sentimental than valuable. Depending on your funds, you might be better off just buying everything new here - but that does get expensive and boring. We also got hit with a customs inspection fee which was complete BS - but they have carte blanche to search whenever they like and it is a nice little business. We think our stuff was searched because of something suspicious in the container (not ours, but someone elses) that showed up on the x ray.

So - if you want to ship some stuff - just be very hard on yourself. Every item you ship can probably be more cost effectively sold in Europe and then replaced here. So if it isn't sentimental, don't bother.

 

[Eucn]

Hi guys,

I haven't seen a thread on this topic, so I thought I would start one. Has anybody had any experience in recent years with container, shipping one's possessions from Europe to the US? To be honest I am between two minds. A small volume say a create or a 20 foot container. Does anyone know pricing for this, pros cons & tips? Was thinking of a trucking service to bring it to the harbor and collect it at Port at say... San Diego if that was possible.

Hi I shipped a full 20 foot container to florida two years ago. No big problems in the custom and nothing broken. Supervise the packing carefully your self. Some of the wooden furniture had expanded and drawers were hard to open, but after a few weeks everything had shrunk back to normal size.