Moving across the country is a daunting task for a family without the uncertainty of how your household is going to get there too. Most people who have been in a home versus an apartment have accumulated a wide range of possessions that will require a variety of packing methods to insure that they arrive safely at the other end.

There are companies that specialize in packing at one end, unpacking at the destination, moving the product between two locations and possibly storing the possessions until they can be placed in the new residence at your destination.

Factors that will affect yor choice of cross country movers are who is paying for the move. If your work is paying for the move, what is your budget or are they taking care of the whole bill. If you are paying for the move, what is your maximum budget and how much are you willing or can do on your own in preparation for the move and once you arrive.

You can split up the entire process in several ways to keep your overall costs to a minimum. If you have an idea of how to pack even fragile items so that they can survive a cross country trip in a semi trailer handling all of the packing on your end is a great way to keep your cost down.

There are numerous local companies that will give you an estimate based on the number of rooms in your house, items that require special handling and possibly crating, and how many boxes will be needed to pack everything for loading on a truck. These companies will let you know how many packers and loaders they will send, how many hours they think the job will take and when to have your truck available for packing.

They will even give you and estimate on how many cubic feet your household items will take up in the truck. The estimate will include the packing material necessary, the hourly rate for the number of loaders and packers that are being sent, and a trip charge if you are more than a few miles from their location, and an overall caveat that there can be additional charges for more packing material and boxes than they originally considered.

The United States Department of Transportation regulates the moving industry so you need to be sure that any cross country mover you use has a USDOT number and/or license.

Any of the major moving and transportation companies will do a good job for you if you are looking for a full service move and can afford the final bill. We moved from Indiana to Utah a few years back and I was responsible for the move myself and I wanted to see just what a full service move would cost.

We contacted three different moving companies including United Van Lines, Mayflower and Atlas Van Lines. The quotes for a full service move ranged from thirteen thousand ($13,000) dollars to almost twenty thousand ($20,000) dollars. The full service move included full packing service on our end (we would not have to do anything except single out what items we did NOT want packed by the staff, the driver and truck delivered to our destination in four business days, and a full unpack at the destination end where all of our furniture would be set back up and all of the boxes placed in the appropriately labeled rooms for us to unpack at our leisure.

All of our fragile, valuable and breakable items were to be packed with special padding, mirrors and artwork were to be crated separately along with any marble table tops we had as well. Also included was a full insurance policy that covered full replacement cost for any item that would be damaged in transit. They also provided a tracking monitor that we could check online that showed the progress of our household as it moved across the country.

Because my budget was about half of the lowest estimate I was forced to look for other options for cross country movers. There are a couple of companies that offer space in their semi trailers that you pay for based on the actual space used in the trailer. If you do not have enough to fill a single trailer your shipment could be consolidated with another going the same way so that you do not have to pay for the entire trailer space.

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