What is the best way to move not much stuff to fill a moving truck cross country? Other than renting a uhaul and driving?
Commercial moving companies commonly charge for loads that only partially fill a truck–at least that is what companies have told us this week.
The partial load shares a truck with another partial load & both are probably sent to a storage facility until the move-in date.
This is second-hand information. Very easy to call any moving & storage company to get information & quotes.
Check whether the quote is an estimate or a guaranteed price. Quotes can vary by a substantial percentage from company to company.
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My neighbor had things shipped by UPS. Expensive, but it saved her some headaches.
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There are companies that ship pods. You fill it, they take it away, deliver to the destination, and it is up to you to unload the pod. They will take it away then.
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UPS ,FedEx or any other shipping company was very expensive. About $1,000 a piece of furniture. Boxes were less. Pods, what a great idea. I will look into it.
I agree with looking into Pods.
We have also had luck finding moving companies at our destination and seeing if they were passing through our area empty. We lived along the I-95 corridor in DC/MD and were able to pay a small fraction of what it would have cost going to CT because we found a company that moved a lot of people from Boston to Florida. They were thrilled to make money carrying our stuff rather than traveling empty the whole way back.
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I just shipped a partial load (about 2500 lbs) from Eastern PA to St. Louis for about $3200 through North American Van Lines; they do containers or have lower price options for partial loads.
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I should say that included $800 to disassemble and crate pool table, plus crating a grandather clock
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Wow! We got a pool table with our house. I gather that the seller inherited the pool table from the prior owner… 
It was actually my parent’s; they sold their house and moved in with us in SC. My nephew wanted the pool table for sentimental reasons. We did partial loads to SC and MO.
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It would’ve been cheaper to buy a pool table out there 
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A friend loaded up her SUV and took it on the auto train. This option may not be available where you are (this was from Northern VA/ DC area to Florida).
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I am afraid the option is not available. That will be so great if it were.
Declutter and divest of as much material goods as you possibly can. It’s just stuff! Whatever you really need you can buy again on the other coast.
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We used a full size pod from the pods company and then a couple years later a small pod from u-haul. Both companies would deliver and leave the pod for a few days for packing and unpacking and also provide a free month of storage. We purchased moving blankets very inexpensively from Amazon. The full size pod was about $1600 and the smaller pod about $1000 for approx 1500 mile move.
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@lb5 The quote I got from Pod is about $4,000 from a 3000 mile move.
Pod cost might depend on time of year. It may also depend on where you are moving (if they need Pods in the new location or not). When my BIL checked into moving vans, the cost varied considerably. I believe he asked the local rental company the best time to rent, and based his move partially on the cheapest times.
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I’ve done it several different ways, and the pricing just depends on the distance, the time of year, and calling around for the best prices. I did like the POD style as at the time I was moving from a storage garage to a townhouse, so could load it quickly and unload it quickly. I did have help both loading and unloading. I recently moved a whole house in a Budget truck and hated every minute of it, but it was the cheapest.
I once moved and I think I used about 1/8 of a moving van. It was rather nice that they loaded everything and unloaded everything and I didn’t have to carry anything! It wasn’t terribly expensive but it was 30 years ago. I do remember that the delivery window was over about a week, but I think they actually delivered it the day I wanted.
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I think your only other options would be to ship everything or work with a moving company. I don’t know how much it costs to ship, but if you’re considering a moving truck, it’s probably too expensive to ship it. Personally, I’d hire movers to make it easier (Three Men & A Truck are great if you need a rec) and it takes a lot of the stress/headache out of the deal for me.