National move - long distance - how to find a moving company?

Hello everyone!

So far, I have only moved with a company within the extended region. Now, a move of almost 600km is coming up in the summer.

How do I best search for a transport company? Do you look for one at the destination or at the place of departure? How does it work organizationally? Does the company load the truck the day before and then leave early in the morning? Has anyone done this before?

Our last move (40km) took almost a whole day (8 am to 7 pm or so?) – if I also have to drive 550km, will that be a multi-day operation?

When I moved up here back then, I hardly had any household items (student) and organized it myself with a sprinter van. By now we need at least a truck, and none of us can drive it. I am grateful for your tips and experiences.

Yes, normally it is a two-day operation. If the household is very large, it is worth packing in batches, so everything you urgently need at the beginning, for example furniture to store the things from the boxes of the second batch, first. With one truck this happens automatically anyway, as it is simply the natural packing order. With two trucks you have to pay attention. Some companies pack very early in the morning (from 6 a.m.) and then unpack at the destination until late at night. Whether the company is from the origin or destination location is, in my opinion, irrelevant. Possibly rather from the destination location, because personally I would find it more pleasant that after 12-16 hours of hard work the movers do not have to drive the truck over 500 km back home on the same day.

As you know, we have already gone through exactly your planned process. You take the moving company from your current place of residence and best get 2-3 quotes. On the moving day, loading takes place and the move to the new residence is done at most. Unloading is done the next day. So you need an overnight stay in between (we stayed in a hotel). It is possible that the whole thing will take 3 days due to the 600 km distance. If you need storage options, you can also take a moving company from your new place of residence. This just makes the quote process more difficult because the companies come to your home and personally inspect and record the moving goods. And that will be anything but cheap.

Hi,

Actually, every somewhat larger moving company does that. It’s their daily bread.

For 600 kilometers, they will probably load on day 1, drive down on day 2, and unload on day 3. Larger companies also like to work with local partners. That means only one driver and maybe a foreman who also packed the stuff will go down. The heavy lifting during unpacking is done by local people. The advantage is that you save quite a bit on overnight stays and driving times. Otherwise, you have 3-4 people traveling twice 600 km (= a whole day) in the truck and also having to stay overnight twice.

Get several quotes and the reputable ones will come to you and inspect how much it actually is. That’s very hard to estimate.

My mother did such a move 2 years ago and the quotes ranged between 5k€ and 12k€.

Best regards,

Andreas

My mother did such a move 2 years ago and the quotes ranged from €5k to €12k.

Holy moly, that’s a lot of money. You have to consider selling all our Ikea furniture on eBay Classifieds / getting rid of it and then driving to IKEA on site, and bringing the rest down with 1-2 trips in a Sprinter. Because we don’t currently have very high-quality furniture here. It’s mostly Ikea. And for €10k I could basically refurnish myself properly. O.o

We recently accompanied a move of over 500 km in our family as well. The offer from 2 larger moving companies was between 5-8k. 1 day packing and driving. 1 overnight stay for 4 people. 1 day unpacking and driving home. One company made the offer online via video conference. That worked well. The other came by the traditional way, but you could have also sent photos of the rooms/furniture.

We then decided to rent a truck ourselves for 600€ (we could pick it up at the departure location and return it at the arrival location) and book some student helpers directly at the respective place. We paid about 2,000€ total including truck, packing material, and fuel.