<p>Hi all. Dd is going about a 20 hour car ride from home for art school. We had thought we would drive all the stuff down, but now, we are reconsidering. Just looking for advice from others that have had the same situation. She will already have most of her supplies, so we will have to take them with us. Also, we have large portfolio cases which I guess she could leave at home, and if they are needed, we could drive down with them at another time. I know we can order and pick up traditional stuff from Linens and Things and from Target, so that is not really a concern. Thanks for any tips that you can give me!</p>
<p>We had a similar long distance launch, Florida to Minnesota. We rented a van and drove up her stuff, made a vacation out of it after dropping her off. She had an dorm-apartment, so she needed kitchen stuff, and other stuff that most kids in a dorm wouldn’t need. This year she’s getting a real apartment, and we were figuring out what to do this time, as now she will have some furniture to bring. We looked at the alternatives (renting a uhaul, shipping it via PODS, etc) and the van turned out to be the cheapest.</p>
<p>Climate difference? We shipped winter clothes, etc. by UPS. Cheaper than paying for extra baggage on a plane, or renting truck to haul stuff. We personally had good experience with Bed,Bath, the local Target was useless. Bicycles are easily shipped, have your local bike shop help, and ship to another local shop for reassembly. Plan early for storage of the stuff she doesn’t need back if returning for the summer, multiple students can share a small storage locker.</p>
<p>We are going from Philadelphia to Florida, so the clothing will be the least of our worries! The school says to bring lots of shorts and comfortable t-shirts for the first semester of school, and of course, closed-toed shoes, so I am not worried about that stuff. More worried about the more substantial stuff, particularly the bike, the portfolios (giant) and the tubes for work, the art supplies and that sort of stuff. I think if we were going away from the heat we might want to make a vacation, but going south in August is not my idea of fun, as I hate any humidity. But thank you both for the responses. Shipping the bike may be a great alternative. Anyone else?</p>
<p>Hi Phillyartmom,
Just wrote a long note to you! It’s much easier to fly and is definitely doable. We found it was less expensive to just buy new portfolios and have them shipped directly from Utrecht or Dick Blick (free shipping with purchase!). Our daughter uses the portfolios that were left behind when she takes classes over the summer, so it is handy to have some extra. FL clothes are a cinch to pack, and she won’t need a jacket til wintertime (a fleece will suffice even then). Pack art supplies or ship UPS, or direct from a store if you’re buying. You can wait on the bike and see if she really needs it once she gets there. As for summer storage, we rent a 5 x 5 x 8 climate-controlled unit and everything fits…jam packed! D has no furniture, just her supplies, plastic tower storage, bins, microwave, linens, etc. She just finished a whole year of oil painting so I have to figure out how I’m going to store her work, maybe get special packing boxes from a mover or Home Depot!</p>
<p>I’m in Florida and don’t blame you for wanting to avoid Florida in August. It’s brutal. We were trying to figure out how to get her bike there as well - we were going to take it on Amtrak with us, but it was too much of a hassle. We ended up buying her one there. We too, rented the 5x5 storage space for the summer, worked out great. We always flew Southwest where you can bring 2 suitcases free, so we had 4 jam packed suitcases, then she kept 2 there and I brought 2 home. When I go up in May to pick her up, I’ll bring 2 again, and she already has 2 up there. What doesn’t fit in the suitcases gets put in storage. The biggest thing that was a pain to bring home, was an oversized charcoal drawing and we couldn’t find a tube long enough. UPS store to the rescue for the tube, but was cheaper to send via post office - which, will become your best friend!!</p>
<p>Also, make sure Linens and Things are still there, they closed a bunch over on the east coast of Florida.</p>
<p>This is bringing back so many memories… LOL (we too had a 20-22 hour road trip). I still remember the Walmart in his college town on move-in day: Kids and parents with huge shopping carts full of everything from linens to TVs!</p>
<p>Yes, the nostalgia of dragging a 49.9 pound duffle bag through LAX, picking through the emptied shelves of the Culver City Target, and being back at home 24 hours after I left to a much less hectic home. Lining up for carts to get the pile up to the 4th floor. Very exciting for you, enjoy the chaos.</p>
<p>Dig and jt: funny posts! Made me smile, thanks!</p>
<p>We anticipated the empty shelves and arrived a couple days early to get the shopping out of the way. Most things were pre-purchased and ready to pick up, and we also shipped some things down. It also helps to go a couple miles in another direction when shopping the chain stores!</p>
<p>49.9 lbs. made me laugh…we have been there, cutting that 50 lb. bag limit very close! One thing phillartmom will enjoy is the team of students ready to meet her family at the car to carry everything up to her D’s room!</p>
<p>
Yes, that’s true. That was great!</p>
<p>But the real fun come in a year or two when your D moves out of the dorm into off-campus housing. Then, you’ve got furniture and all the other household/kitchen items to worry about. At my S’s college town, at the end of the school year, the streets were lined with furniture and other things that the graduating students did not want to deal with again. Not quite dumpster-diving, but hey, there were some great things being thrown out. The trick is to get there before the used-furniture scavengers!</p>
<p>Also… some advice for U-Haul and other renters: check prices carefully. In towns which could be labeled “college towns,” one-way prices can be insane. If you are dropping off a trailer on move-in day or picking up a trailer on move-out day, beware. BUT, if you pick it up and drop it off in a large city along the way, near the college town, you can save A LOT. The difference for us on one trip was the difference between $425 (drop off in the college town) vs $93 (drop off in a nearby city).</p>
<p>dig, GREAT tip about the U-Haul! I have found that with rentals on cars, too. For example, if I rent in Tampa and drop off in Orlando, the cost is much higher than renting in Sarasota and dropping off in Orlando, same car, same # of days! It has actually been cheaper for me to catch a shuttle from Tampa to Sarasota and rent a car there. So, it pays to check rates!</p>
<p>I just read that at D’s school (Ringling), they are having an on-campus garage sale next Saturday, and at the close of that some local charities will come by and pick up whatever the students want to leave. Sounds like a win-win!</p>
<p>I remember being astounded at the huge amounts of “stuff” going up the elevators. Maybe if you need a U-haul you’re taking too much. Just a thought as that year goes by quickly and I wonder how much gear a freshman student really needs. Also another tip, any Target etc. nearby will be either sold down to the empty shelves or near-about. Order and ship from on-line after about a week of settling in, that’ll cool some of that anxious parental over-stocking urge (which I was sort of guilty of also). And order from places with free ship.</p>
<p>A caution from my sister who sent four off, only buy one set of sheets because with most kids they’ll never come out of the original packaging and be placed on the bed unless done so by the parentals before leaving. Once removed from said bed they will probably never be used again. She swore she quit sending them off with sheets after spending a fortune on those neat off to college striped and flowered sets to find that they were never used! (PS I “think” she was kidding . . . about not buying the sheets, not about their not being used) LOL</p>
<p>Oh and my favorite tip.
Anything fabric goes into Space Bags, it’s amazing how much stuff you can pack with little actual space using them. Definitely worth the dough.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the tips and the laugh! I also just found out that Dh has a business associate that lives 15 minutes from campus and goes right by it on the way to work. I think i can probably send stuff to their house, so that might also be helpful for getting her art supplies out the doorbearly and there when she needs them.</p>
<p>phillyartmom, Nice to have a friend nearby! Even if your D doesn’t know the business associate yet, they’ll get to know one another and you might feel good about having someone close by if there’s ever an emergency.</p>
<p>artsmarts, I had heard that from moms of boys about the sheets! I can’t imagine not using sheets or never washing them…eeeewww! D washes hers, not as often as at home, but they do see some suds once in awhile! She just throws them in the wash and puts them right back on, so the 2nd set is packed away in her closet. I would imagine having the laundry room right there on her floor (each wing has its own laundry room) helps the kids stay on top of things. Where do you buy the Space Bags, at BBB? I haven’t used those b/c when we fly I think the extra room would make the bags surpass the weight limit imposed by the airline, because we’d pack more! They would be handy for storage, though, and it would be easier to haul things like comforters around. I have made my own faux space bags at home! One day I needed to pack away some comforters and wanted to fit more than one per bin, so I took a heavy clear bag, inserted comforter, and use the vacuum to pull the air out. So far the bin’s cover hasn’t come flying across the room, LOL! I wouldn’t count on that for long term storage; it’s easy enough to fix here at home if it doesn’t hold and bursts open.</p>
<p>Redbug, I’m flying SW with 2 bags when I go to pick up D. They don’t fly into Sarasota, but I’m going to visit my older kiddo in Orlando first. I usually fly JetBlue and since they had a good fare coming back I’ll just pay for one extra bag. The 2 bags free on SW is a good deal! Did we ever imagine we would have to pay for baggage?!</p>
<p>I’m going to start a new thread for organizing so we can all pool our tips, not only for the newbies, but all of us who can say “why didn’t I think of that?!”</p>
<p>phillyartmom, Nice to have a friend nearby! Even if your D doesn’t know the business associate yet, they’ll get to know one another and you might feel good about having someone close by if there’s ever an emergency.</p>
<p>artsmarts, I had heard that from moms of boys about the sheets! I can’t imagine not using sheets or never washing them…eeeewww! D washes hers, not as often as at home, but they do see some suds once in awhile! She just throws them in the wash and puts them right back on, so the 2nd set is packed away in her closet. I would imagine having the laundry room right there on her floor (each wing has its own laundry room) helps the kids stay on top of things. Where do you buy the Space Bags, at BBB? I haven’t used those b/c when we fly I think the extra room would make the bags surpass the weight limit imposed by the airline, because we’d pack more! They would be handy for storage, though, and it would be easier to haul things like comforters around. I have made my own faux space bags at home! One day I needed to pack away some comforters and wanted to fit more than one per bin, so I took a heavy clear bag, inserted comforter, and use the vacuum to pull the air out. So far the bin’s cover hasn’t come flying across the room, LOL! I wouldn’t count on that for long term storage; it’s easy enough to fix here at home if it doesn’t hold and bursts open.</p>
<p>Redbug, I’m flying SW with 2 bags when I go to pick up D. They don’t fly into Sarasota, but I’m going to visit my older kiddo in Orlando first. I usually fly JetBlue and since they had a good fare coming back I’ll just pay for one extra bag. The 2 bags free on SW is a good deal! Did we ever imagine we would have to pay for baggage?!</p>
<p>I’m going to start a new thread for organizing so we can all pool our tips, not only for the newbies, but all of us who can say “why didn’t I think of that?!”</p>
<p>Yep, that one way or “drop it off somewhere else” can be a killer. I didn’t really want to make the 3 day drive back from Minnesota to Florida alone, but it was literally twice as much to leave the van in Minn. And I really didn’t want to spend that extra $800.</p>
<p>Been there on the 49.9 limit. If it’s over, look for paper items. We pulled out 3 sketchbooks, and it put her at 50.2, but the guy let it go. 2 of us were hauling 4 50lb suitcases, one of which we had to buy at Walmart (It made the trip, and then was ready for the trash) and 4 carryons, I have no idea how we did it, but it was the first time I had to rent one of those rip-off carts to go about 500’. We were flying into Kansas City for s stopover for my nephews wedding and I had rented a car. When I realized all the stuff we had, I ended up swapping for an SUV.</p>
<p>Do a google search for space bags, they’re all over the place, BBB, WalMart, Target, etc. And our local hardware store carries them and I like to buy local when I can afford it. Yes, they’re especially great for those things like comforters that take up a ton of room but aren’t heavy.</p>
<p>It’s a good caution about the weight limit on flying though. My sister just got totally ripped off on a couple of extra bags flying. We’ve taken to shipping item before traveling to or from, it’s usually much cheaper than that extra bag fee to ship parcel. </p>
<p>I’m also a huge train advocate. Amtrak is very generous. 2 carryons with a 50 lbs weight limit and 3 check ins each with 50 pound limit at no extra charge. That gives you 250 pounds with no extra cost on your ticket. Yes, it might mean a overnight trip but I love the train. If you of a certain (ahem) age as I am I recommend a sleeper as you get your meals free as well as free drinks, coffee, water, ect so it often comes out as cheap as coach anyway and you can stretch out to sleep. If it’s a day trip the train is quite inexpensive for getting luggage to and from. You can also take oversized items like bikes at an extra charge. Also Amtrak does not penalize for cancelled trips, you have up to a 24 hour window to cancel or change with no extra charge. If you’ve paid they’ll comp you for another ticket, I’m not sure about refunds but they don’t penalize you.</p>
<p>If my bags are really heavy I use the trainside carts driven by employees, put your bags on, get on a ride right to your car with a small tip the cost. These are available at the large city stations.</p>