It is SHOCKINGLY expensive to ship things to the UK. Originally we thought we’d ship a couple of things and then just bring a ton of suitcases, but someone I know who works at a major international airline warned me that it could be very expensive AND it’s possible we wouldn’t be allowed extra luggage.

Yikes. If you’re moving during vacation season, there could be some limits on luggage extras, so I cannot stress strongly enough to check with your airline. In the end, it’s likely a safe bet to just plan on bringing two checked bags and one carry-on per person traveling. We were lucky enough to use miles to travel business class, so we managed to book one extra bag (five checked bags total), and our weight limit was higher than if we’d been traveling coach. That basically accommodated all of our clothing and toiletries, along with some of the items needed for our cats.

So, what does that mean for your other things? Well, I love books. And I wanted our books to come with us. Books are heavy, so in each of the boxes we shipped, about half were books, and half were other items. In the end we shipped five medium-sized boxes (we purchased the heavy ones from Home Depot). We also used a lot of tape; the one lesson we learned from that is to tape up all the seams AND all of the edges. All of our boxes arrived, and the only damage was to glass items I didn’t cushion well enough, but half of the boxes were splitting at the seams.

We decided early on that we were not bringing any of our furniture with us. We had some lovely pieces that I was sad to part with – some we sold to random folks, some we sold or gave away to friends, and some our renter ended up purchasing. But so many flats in the UK come furnished or partly furnished – many, many more than in the US – so we decided we’d find a furnished flat and supplement with Ikea furniture (which we did, but more on that later).

There are options out there for shipping in pods, which are generally flat rates based on size. But those also mean the items might not arrive for three months, and that didn’t seem worth the cost. In the end we just barely ended up spending less on our shipping than any of the quotes we received, although we probably also shipped less than we could have.

Each of the five boxes we shipped cost about $350, and were shipped via USPS. We were able to track it all the way through, but local independent shop that handled the paperwork and such for us did warn that we might not be able to track our packages once they were turned over to the UK.

We also shipped some art. We have some we paid to be framed back in the US; the company that framed them essentially unframed them for us for free, and charged $20 to un-frame ones they didn’t originally frame. Two of our items were framed using acrylic, not glass, and so could be shipped as is. Those two shipments were in addition to the five boxes.

What made it easy for us was that my partner’s new company allowed us to ship to their office. Once we found a flat, we were able to just get a van taxi and move it all over to our new place.

We didn’t ship or give away everything, however. Our wedding china is stored in two boxes in the crawl space under a friend’s staircase. We also didn’t ship two boxes worth of photo albums, which now live at another friend’s place. We might ship those to us if we want them later, but for now they are safe and sound. And finally, we have a nice record player and collection of records that are living at a third friend’s place.

Downsizing can be fun; the key is to not immediately upsize once you get to the UK…

I’m not getting paid for this suggestion, but we found that the best option for us was giff gaff, because they will send you the SIM card ahead of time (for free), so you can set up your account before you get on the plane, and then once you arrive, replace your old SIM and get started with your new UK number. This will help with certain things, like setting up delivery appointments to your new place.

We like giff gaff because it’s cheap (£20 / month for unlimited texting and 9 GB of data, which throttles after that, but who uses that much data all the time?).

Just be sure your phone is unlocked. This might not work for you iPhone folks, but if you’ve got an Android phone, it’s a great option.

Be sure to hold onto your old SIM for a bit. Once we arrived, we moved our old phone number to a Google voice account. It’s a one-time $20 fee, but it’s worth it for all those two-step verifications on US-based accounts (say, your bank) that won’t let you change to a non-US phone number. It also helps you keep your phone number for when you move back to the US. We’ll cover this more in the Upon Arrival section, but you’ll also want to hold onto your old SIM so that you can tether your computer to it when you do the Google voice set-up.

Here’s a fun thing: when you move to the UK, if you don’t apply for a Transfer of Residence (TOR) number first, they might charge you tax on things you already own.

Weird, right? I mean, I don’t know if other countries do this, but I didn’t realize it was a thing.

We first found out about this when we called the pet import company recommended to us by the airline we would be flying on to London. We needed the TOR to avoid paying tax on the cats we had adopted six years prior.

But we also found that it came in handy when we shipped items. The person who printed out all the customs forms to attach to our boxes of belongings just wrote the term “Personal belongings – moving to UK. Transfer of Residence #” on each form. I’m not sure if that ended up making a difference, but I do know our items cleared customs quickly and none were pulled out for additional inspection.

Regardless, if you are moving your car, or your pets, you’ll definitely need it, so get going on it as early in the process as possible, as it takes a couple of weeks to arrive via email.

The forms you need are here. You’ll be asked to include supporting documentation, like a copy of your job offer letter, or your marriage certificate or birth certificates for your kids. Our files were large, so I ended up sending three emails total.

As part of the application, they ask for a list of items you’ll be bringing over. We kept it pretty high level and only got specific with very expensive things. For example, we said “clothing and personal care items,” but specified “two laptops” and “three video game systems.” I think we also said “dozens of books.”

If you have pets you’ll need to include it in the paperwork you send to the pet importers ahead of time so again, don’t leave this to the last minute.

Once you have your visa, there’s a lot to take care of. If you own a house, you have to figure out if you’re going to rent it or sell it. If you’re renting, you have to give notice to your landlord. If you have a job, you have to let them know you’re leaving. You have to figure out what you’re going to do with your belongings, your pets, etc.

This section is to help you get through these days, which go by VERY quickly.

When we moved, we did it during the winter holiday season. So take what you’re going through now, and throw in a week-long trip to visit all immediate family members, plus trying to see the friends you’re moving away from, and you can probably see that this can be an emotionally draining as well as physically tiring time.

Being organized can help. For us, we found that creating a shared Google spreadsheet was a good way to put on paper all the things we needed to do.

We had a tab for each general area, and then listed the tasks and who was responsible. For us, that included:

• Jobs (and the visa stuff)
• Health (like reminders to get in appointments before losing insurance)
• London Living (including researching neighborhoods)
• Renting our house
• Actual move (flights, etc.)
• Furniture (what we wanted to sell / store / give away)
• Car
• Finances
• Cats
• Shipping (a tab for each box, with contents, because they ask you for the details of what’s inside when you ship overseas)

In the very beginning it can seem overwhelming, but we found this spreadsheet was a great way to keep in focus all that we needed to get done to make sure that the move was as as easy as possible.

To be clear: it’s not going to be easy.

But it could be extraordinarily hard, and no one wants that, right?