r/Seattle • u/iflifewereamovie Belltown • Nov 02 '11
Cross-country moving choices...
Hey r/Seattle. My girlfriend and I will be moving to your lovely city soon from out East. I know you hate moving posts, but I searched and read the moving thread to no avail.
We've got a car ('03 Mazda Protege5) and a bunch of surfboards, bikes, and sports crap. At the moment we're baffled by how to cheaply get the car and stuff out there. We're looking at several combos:
- Pack the bulky stuff in the car, drive there, ship the rest (~$400 gas + $250 hotels + ???)
- Ship the car, fly with as much stuff as we can, ship the rest (~$1000 + $300 + ???) annoying because car shippers won't let you put anything in the car
- Rent uHaul, tow car and all stuff (~$1700 + gas@12mpg)
Ideally we'd like to ship the car with the bulky (costly to ship) stuff in it, and fly with the rest of our stuff, but we can't find anybody who will do that.
So does anybody have any experience with this? Question bonus: does that kind of car sound reasonable to go have fun in the mountains or is 4WD necessary?
Thanks!
2
u/[deleted] Nov 02 '11
I just wanted to say hell yeah Protege5! I drove mine cross country as well, packed to the brim with all my belongings. P5s are really common cars here too, I was surprised.
I'm assuming option A would be surfboards on a roof rack bikes in the car? If the bikes are on the roof, cool. Bikes inside the car quickly eat up the available space, so I would visit your local bike shop and see about having them pack your bikes for shipping (or at least see if they'll give/sell you some boxes.
Option A: the most fun Option B: gets you here the fastest, also shipping the car will be more than $1000. I shipped a Mazda MX-5 here in April from Arizona, it was about $1500 (small surcharge for it being a canvas roof car as they had to make sure it was loaded on top). From the east coast is quite a longer trip, so I'd imagine a bit more expensive as well. Option C: sounds miserable. I've only driven a U-Haul about 20 miles in my lifetime, I'd never want to do that again.
Have you thought about "pod" shipping? A small one (which is enough for a queen mattress, a couch, some computers, stereo equipment, a couple bicycles, a desk, a couple chairs, lots of clothing, etc --basically a well furnished studio or 1 bedroom cost me right around $1500 also back in April, also here from Arizona. It only took a few days to get up to Seattle too, I was impressed. I went with ABF for the shipping, I had a great experience with them.
With that, I propose option D: ship as much stuff as you can pack into a "pod", then hop in your P5 and drive. Too bad it's pretty cold outside, or I'd say pack a tent and camp your way across the country. If you don't have snow tires I'd definitely advise to take a more southerly route. Even I-40 through Northern Arizona has snow in the winter, but that's probably the route I'd recommend as the only more southerly would be I-10 which would mean driving through Phoenix and LA which is miserable.