Travel tip: Mail items home

In Connie Cox and Cris Evatt’s book 30 Days to a Simpler Life, the authors make a travel suggestion that is so obvious and pro-Unclutterer that I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it on my own:

Midway through your trip … mail home museum brochures, menus, small souvenirs, postcards, tax receipts, and used maps. Bring a few manila envelopes for this purpose. Why carry maps of Italy to Sweden by train?

Sending home no-longer needed items as your travels progress is a great way to keep your luggage clutter free.

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Posted by Erin on Jun 8, 2007 | Comments |

13 comments posted

  1. Posted by Jacki Hollywood Brown - 06/08/2007

    After about 2 years the maps and travel brochures are out of date. You are better off giving them to other tourists or even locals if you do not plan on using them for a scrap book (be honest with yourself here). Mailing them home is just spending money to collect clutter!

  2. Posted by Ana - 06/08/2007

    I did this during my wedding/honeymoon. after the wedding we mailed our clothes and things we’d picked up home and lightened our load signifigantly.

  3. Posted by Jens Dalsgaard - 06/08/2007

    Jacki is completely right. Try to get rid of it right away and save the money and hassle afterwards.

  4. Posted by Dr. Ragan, www.psychologyofclutter.com - 06/08/2007

    I wonder if I ran in to you on my trip to Paris last summer Jacki. On the Metro an American tourist handed me a stack of maps brochures and other pieces of handy info and simply said, “Enjoy.”

    Passing them on-what a great piece of advice. I always think I’m going to do something spectacular with my trip souvenirs. After a month or two they either end up in a box or in the trash.

  5. Posted by Nancy - 06/08/2007

    These ideas are great! As someone who has had a package or 2 lost by the postal service (in more countries than 1), I’d just warn against mailing anything that you will definitely need down the line (i.e. the tax receipts mentioned). Those you might want to just keep neatly in an envelope in your suitcase.

  6. Posted by adora - 06/08/2007

    I had sent my entire luggage by cargo service. They put it on whichever flight that has extra space. It’s about $100 for sending a 60lb luggage from Europe to USA depending on the carrier. The more, the cheaper because they charge a basic service fee + cost by weight. Shipping speed varies. If you can pick it up at the airport yourself, you can also save on the delivery. There is no custom duty for personal effects.

    It’s a great idea to take off the load so one can enjoy the trip, but it can actually promote cluttering back home.

    When I traveled with my friend in Italy, her parents joined us in Venice and took 2 luggages for her back home. It was filled with clutter/souvenirs like sugar packets with the Pantheon drawings on it from our apartment cafe. She must have gotten over 100 postcards…

    Since I was taking a middle-eastern airline that only permits one luggage, I took mostly pictures and record videos as my souvenir. My friend went to Italy with 2 oversize luggages and left with another 2 + the 2 her parents took home.

    She still has those sugar packets from 5 years ago.

  7. Posted by Keith - 06/08/2007

    I agree with Jacki; some of my most clutter-free times are three week trips with one backpack, knowing that everything I buy or keep, I must carry!

  8. Posted by Rodney - 06/08/2007

    A perhaps odd variant: when I went to Italy two years ago, I took along a portable CD burner that I could put my CompactFlash cards into. I would daily burn my photos onto CD, twice, then keep one CD copy with me, and mail the other copy home.

    I figured I was thus insured against my bags or camera being stolen, which thankfully didn’t happen, and all CDs arrived correctly.

    And now all those CDs are still cluttering up my compter room. >ahem

  9. Posted by Ryan - 06/08/2007

    Sounds like good advice, unless your Mailbox is an unclutterer himself. I’m sure he’d MeBox your vacation memories without thinking twice.

  10. Posted by Heather - 06/08/2007

    The vast majority of my vacation treasures are photos, which are stored on a flash card. Clutter free traveling at its best. That said, I have purchased etchings and small art pieced before, which required careful handling, although they didn’t add much weight or matter to the trip.

  11. Posted by JB - 06/08/2007

    If you’re really a planner, you can bring along one of the USPS’s new flat-rate boxes or envelopes, which will prevent you from having to find a post office during your trip. If you pre-pay the postage, you can stuff as much as you want, as long as you can close the envelope/box. Then just find nearest mail box or concierge.

  12. Posted by The Shopping Sherpa - 06/08/2007

    I take a spiral bound A4 notebook, double sided tape, scissors and a pen with me when I travel overseas.

    As I go along I write my trip diary on the right hand side pages and stick in postcards, tickets and souvenirs on the left hand side, leaving room for photos which I’ll print out later and add.

    This means I have some down time each day (very important), have a much more detailed memory of the trip than I would if I waited til I got home, plus (more importantly) I decide on a day by day basis what papery bits I want to keep and deal with it there and then.

    And it’s fun during each trip to try and find a suitable sized A4 plastic bag to keep it in!

    (I can provide photos if anyone’s interested)

  13. Posted by Sestos - 06/09/2007

    I have been doing this in the military for awhile during deployments. If I get a book order a book,cd,dvd off Amazon used. I will box it up and send it back to the states, makes it much easier then trying to carrying around everything till its time to go home.

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