Moving across the country can be as stressful as it is daunting, and you are going to want the right partners in your corner to make it all happen. The easy road to take would be to visit MyLongDistanceMovers.com, however, there are many of us who love to do things ourselves. Here we go over all the necessary steps you’ll need to take for a successful long distance relocation.
Know Where You Want to Live Before You Leave
If you already have a job lined up or are changing schools, it’s likely you already have a clear idea of where you are going to stay. However, if your reasons for making the big move come with fewer guarantees about housing, your choice of neighborhood is perhaps the most important factor you have to consider before leaving.
Your choice of neighbourhood will either make or break your first year in your new city. So, you want to take an hour or two to do your research about the city in question and decide on neighborhoods that are a great fit for you.
Factors you want to consider are safety record, job opportunities, apartment vacancies and prices, and also cost of living. You should probably go a step further to browse sites like Yelp and Google StreetView to get real reviews and visuals.
Summer Is Not Necessarily The Best Time To Leave
So, when do you plan on making the big move? Please don’t say summer! Unless you happen to be on a deadline — a new role at work you have to fill as soon as possible, for example — don’t hop on the myth about summer being the best time to move. Here’s why:
Everybody and their mom are moving in the summer — this makes finding a home an even bigger nightmare than it already is. It doesn’t end there. Moving companies can charge more — and often do, and even moving truck rental businesses will try to milk you of all the money they can as they try to leverage the summer relocation fever.
There is nothing wrong with timing your move to fall during the months of October and May. Not only will the search for apartments be less daunting but the overall cost of the move will be far cheaper than what it would have been otherwise.
What to Do With Your Stuff
Once you decide to move, some of your most treasured stuff will automatically be relegated to the category of “junk you don’t need” — or at least stuff you can buy or replace in your new city. That is, of course, unless you are keen on incurring the high cost of transporting everything you own at the moment.
Here are a few ways you can go about making your load lighter as you move:
- Put the stuff you don’t need on Craigslist. To get the most out of this, try to list your stuff a few weeks before your planned move so that people have the time to actually find them. You can also treat it as a yard sale in the final week before your move by designating a single afternoon during which whoever calls you has first dibs on the item of their choice and they can come pick it up at an agreed time.
- Host a “Take My Stuff” party and invite all your friends. You know those nonperishables that lie in the kitchen closet? Those half-finished bottles of drinks that will make no sense to insist on taking across the country? Random and cool bits around the house? Well, you can have your friends take their pick among these during your “Take My Stuff” party! It’s a hassle-free, fun, and efficient way to do away with stuff you can sell off, and one strong advantage is that you get the chance to tell your friends and family goodbye before you actually leave.
- Donate some of your stuff to some deserving charity in your area. Many of these charities are choosy about what they accept so you want to call and make sure first before driving over to donate whatever it is you intend to.
- So, you now have only the stuff you can’t imagine parting with. Great, you now have to figure out how to get these from point A (where you are) to point B (where you are moving to). You could rent a truck and drive it yourself or you could ship them, book a flight, and meet them on the other side.
Unless you have experience with the demands of driving a loaded truck over thousands of miles, you should go with the latter. There are lots of companies that specialise in this sort of service. Make sure you package your goods properly, using a lot of padding for the fragile stuff that will not fit into your carry-on luggage for your flight.
Avoid Renting Remotely and Save Yourself a World of Regret
You would think you should be able to tell a landlord that you will pay up once you’ve had the chance to see the property, but that is hardly the case in practise.
Most landlords will not agree to such an arrangement, and if they do they want a deposit on a site you are yet to see. This is all well and good in the case where the apartment in question is one among many similar units or in the case where a floor plan is given. In the other cases, however, it is impossible to know what you are getting into just from a listing.
So, what do you do?
You can sublet in your new city for a while and search for an apartment during your first few months. Alternatively, if you are lucky, maybe you have a friend who can put you up for a few months, which is an even better option.
Expect A Few Mental Breakdowns Along The Way
Relocating to a faraway destination can be stressful in so many ways, whether it is logistics, planning, hauling your stuff, saying goodbye to old ties, and welcoming new, you can expect to have your limits tested along the way.
You want to use every de-stressing method you have found to work well for you so that you don’t lose your hair — or anything else — along the way to your new destination.
