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

You will certainly travel there a few times beforehand. If you have storage options at the new house or with acquaintances, you can already take a larger load with a Sprinter.

That's roughly what I'm thinking right now.
I checked Sprinter prices once; even if we move in 2 trips, I think it will still be at least triple-digit.

Here in the north, we don't have anyone I know well enough to ask for moving help. But I know a moving company here; I would ask them if they could help us for a day as movers and load the vehicles. If we then drive down in one trip, I would see if we can get help from the family. So that they might come up to us by train and take a Sprinter down with them. We should manage with 2 times 3.5 tons. I still have several months now to get rid of stuff.
Maybe also the very heavy furniture.
And on-site down there, either ask the family for help or also inquire with a moving company whether they can help unload the trucks. That way, at least we save money on overnight stays/rest times for employees.

Do not underestimate the amounts that come together there. For my mother, that was the "filling" for a 130 sqm house (which is also quite full). That was a complete truck convoy, meaning a large truck with a large trailer.
You can do a move of a 40 sqm apartment with a Sprinter, but not a house...

Exactly! And I remember that the OP has a small child and few childcare options at the current place of residence?!
I wouldn’t have wanted to do our move of a 100 sqm apartment (50 cubic meters of moving volume) and "only" 150 km distance myself. That was a 12-ton truck!

One has to consider selling off all our IKEA furniture via eBay Classifieds / having it cleared out and then going to IKEA on-site, and transporting the rest down with 1-2 Sprinter trips.

Whether now with a moving company or self-rented vehicles, if I were you, I would calculate how many m3 of furniture you can transport for price x (rent, fuel, etc.). Then calculate how much space your IKEA piece requires. Hypothetically assuming you pay €20 per m3 in the van, your shelf requires 4 m3 of space. Can you get it new for €80 or less? If yes, then better get it new on-site and sell the old one on Classifieds.

Move party, young people travel with 1 car to you, pack and party and sleep on air mattresses, drive 600 km down with 1 car and one-way rental sprinters, unpack and continue partying on the terrace. Experienced firsthand, until 5 a.m. at the destination

Planning: 600km move, with packing done by a company, but unpacking done by myself.

I had searched in Munich for a large company with multiple locations, then found one that was at both the new and old location. I inquired at the new location because I assumed I would get cheaper prices in NRW than in Munich. They then sent one of their sales partners from Munich to estimate the volume. The guy went through the 88m² apartment with me, I opened ALL the cupboards and showed him the basement storage compartment. His assessment: "you have really made good use of the available space."

Planned was: 1 day packing and loading, drive overnight, unload the next day. On moving day, 3 people came from Munich + 2 from NRW, who were there with the truck. They were shocked by the amount of our belongings :cool: and asked: how long is the move supposed to take? When I said "Colleague XY said we would be sleeping in the new apartment tomorrow evening," they waved it off and said that's not going to happen, that guy is a total idiot anyway.

so
Day 1 pack and load until late at night
Day 2 pack and load the rest, give the men a floor plan of the new house with the most important furniture marked by location, they left in the evening with the truck, we still slept on an air mattress in the old apartment.
Day 3 apartment handover, then off we went, arrived only around 5pm (trip with small child, several breaks), by then the truck was almost empty. A large 9 or 12 ton truck plus a 3-axle trailer into which not even a tissue box would fit.

It was chaos, cost my husband an extra day of vacation and a lot of nerves – I'm a bit more resilient :cool:, but it was not pleasant. Even afterwards – I had packed the kids' room and had written on the boxes which room they belonged to. The furniture movers didn’t do that – it took until we had put away our stuff afterwards :-D

ps the company here in NRW was great, we booked them again for the move from the rental house to the owner-occupied home, and that of course (?) went smoothly too, they knew the drama from the first time, even though it wasn't their fault then. We had them pack again, although this time I had already packed 100 boxes myself beforehand. And I stuck at least one color dot on each box, and then on moving day in front of the new house I just directed: blue box: 1st floor right, cupboard Y living room, etc. – THAT was almost funny.

Long talk, short conclusion:
in my opinion one of the most important things is a realistic assessment of the amount of stuff and the time required. I had someone come specially for that because I thought filling out an online form myself would be too inaccurate – but I probably would have done it much more accurately than the guy. And you ALWAYS underestimate it, you're not a professional after all.

Oh, something that just came to mind. Real professionals accomplish much more, faster, and longer than acquaintances, relatives, students, Hartz IV recipients, etc. If you don’t want (or can’t) spend money on real professionals, then quantity matters. The synergy that one, two, or three more men (and yes, women too) bring is really more than the sum of their parts. Always form a chain with amateurs (something professionals don’t do); this saves incredible energy, especially when it comes to multiple floors.