Between college, internships, and joining the real world, I’ve moved all over the country. Last year I moved from Maryland to Texas with all my furniture and belongings in tow. In anticipation of your move to a Camden apartment, I want to give you a few tips from my experience.

1) Check with your new apartment community on their guidelines for moving

It is important to ensure that your new apartment will allow a large moving truck or containers on the property. When moving long-distance you typically will be shipping most of your belongings, and in many cases, the container will be dropped off at your destination.

Make sure your apartment will allow this; if not they may be able to give you alternative options. In my case I could not leave the container on property, but the shipping company has a local storage location where they delivered it. I then rented a UHaul and transported my belongings to the community myself. It worked out great and I was able to save some $$!

2) Pick the moving company that fits your needs

There are many companies out there for long-distance moving so make sure to find one that will fit what you need. These are a few companies that I looked into:

UHAUL: Uhaul not only gives you the option to drive the truck yourself but they have what they call UBox as well! This gives you the option to have your belongings shipped if you don’t want to drive the truck yourself. I was more interested in this option as I was too nervous to drive the truck and wanted to be able to explore the cities we drove through.

PODS: PODS is wonderful because it allows you to put everything into the container and have it shipped to your apartment. They bring the container to your current apartment and allow you time to fill it up, they then put it on a truck to ship to your new apartment and you unload it once you arrive!

UPACK: UPack is the company I ultimately chose to use. They have two options for shipping; a container or a truck. Since I was on a time crunch I chose the truck, you pay by the amount of space you use and it can be dropped off at your new home or their central location

3) Pack Smart

• Take into account the weight of the boxes. Heavy boxes should be on the bottom, lighter ones on the top.

• Be careful when transporting breakables (I put all my breakables in my car so I wouldn’t worry about them breaking on a truck).

• Invest in good packing materials!

• Packing in a container can be a bit of a puzzle so make sure everything is secure.

• Check out Moving can be painless 5 Steps for an easy move for more information about packing smart!

4) Get everything set for unloading

Make sure to look into different movers that can help you at your destination. As I said earlier my father and I rented a UHAUL to get everything off the trailer. We didn’t take into account the blistering heat of Houston in the summertime. Once we got my belongings from the truck into the UHAUL, we knew there was no way the two of us could carry it all up three flights to my new apartment. We called Best Deal Movers and luckily they were able to be at my home in 30 minutes! It was great and we could not have done it without them.

Moving can be stressful, and moving cross-country is no exception! Have fun and explore the cities you visit, and hopefully these tips will cut out some of your moving worries. So, if a new city is calling your name check out Camden Living and find your new home!