I have a fair amount of experience in moving residences, having lived in five different places in college, completed one interstate move and one (short-term) international move. It’s gotten much more organized, but it never gets to be that much less of a pain.
For this move, I’m trying out a pod storage/delivery option. Briefly, the pod company drops off a pod–a shipping container, basically–you fill it up with stuff, they pick it up and store it in a warehouse till you want it, and then they deliver it to wherever you’ve moved. It’s not for same-day moves, but seeing as I wanted to squeeze in a roadtrip before I moved into my new place, that works out fine for me. I don’t have to drive back to my old apartment and then go down to my new one; I can just pack up, go on vacation while my stuff is in storage/transit, and then end my vacation at my new place. It should also end up cheaper than a same-day move, since economies of scale mean that the pod company charges a flat fee for transportation. A same-day mover, on the other hand, would charge by the hour and given traffic between my origin and destination cities, I could end up with a huge overrun in costs.
But there are downsides–namely, at the moment I’m dealing with three companies instead of just one. I am hiring people to load/unload at both ends (so, two companies, plus the pod company), because I live by myself and because the places on both ends are apartments located in urban areas, so you have a limited window of time to park your chosen moving vehicle (as opposed to a house with a driveway, where the pod can just sit for a couple days). One end isn’t that difficult but the other has been a pain in the ass to find bonded movers, as the landlord demands. So at this point, I’m thinking this option really works best if you’re planning to load your own stuff and/or you don’t live in the middle of the city, but the ability to just have my things out of the way while I’m on my vacation is still putting this up on a same-day move.
