Mail Forwarding: does anyone know how to...?

[LaFille1]

Hello everyone,

I am planning in going on an RV adventure in the near future, and since this adventure will probably keep me away from home for a good long time. I am wondering how to go about retrieving my mail. Does anybody know or have some information on what to do? Any advise out there?

Thank you,
Estella

[Darwin Maring]

Check with the Good Sam Club. They have mail forwarding options.

[LaFille1]

Thank you, I sure will.

[Jon in AZ]

There's lots of help with mail and other full-timing/extended travel issues you probably haven't even thought of yet in the fulltiming section of the forum:
Fulltiming in a Molded Fiberglass Trailer - Fiberglass RV

For a specific question like mail, you can use the "Site Search/Google" option at the bottom of the drop down "Search" menu in the blue tab under your log-in information. I tried a quick search on "full-timing mail" and got a lot of hits, including this one:
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...ips-36708.html

[mary and bob]

Escapees has a mail forwarding service too. We have a relative pick ours up at the Post Office about once a week. Anything important she will put in a priority envelope and send it to General Delivery at a Post Office where we are near.

[k corbin]

A lot of local private mail box services offer forwarding services. Since I live in a community with a lot of boats we have a half dozen places right in my neighborhood that will do this function. You just call or email them and tell them when and where you need your mail sent when you are out on the road. I know several of them offer to open, scan and send that scanned document by email. At least that way you can see it right away and in the long run it does not cost a lot more than having the paper itself forwarded on. You can have that done as an encrypted file which is good if you need to be on a public wifi service while traveling.

[Avey]

I believe the USPS will forward your mail to a General Delivery box to any Post Office across the country. If I was you I would talk to your local Post Office and they can explain how General Delivery works.

[LaFille1]

Originally Posted by LaFille1

Hello everyone,

I am planning in going on an RV adventure in the near future, and since this adventure will probably keep me away from home for a good long time. I am wondering how to go about retrieving my mail. Does anybody know or have some information on what to do? Any advise out there?

Thank you,
Estella

I just want to say thank you so much, to all of you who responded to my question. It feels great when support comes to you from "all directions." From the bottom of my heart, thank you again.

Estella

Psalm 107:1

[Darwin Maring]

https://www.goodsammailservice.com

Looks like a most professional service.

[honda03842]

We used Escapees mail service for 14 years. As well as having their own post office, you get a legal Texas mailing address that may also help you out in your travels. Check Escapees.com

[rdickens]

Just a thought about US postal mail forwarding in general .....
(Forwarding done by an organization like Escapees or Good Sam Club is probably a bit different than US postal mail forwarding.)

If your travels are expected to be no more than 6 weeks in duration, you might consider just holding your mail at the local post office as a possible better option?

On a previous extended trip, we had our mail forwarded to our son's house and it caused us
some problems. The reason was that the rules at our post office would not allow forwarding
of financial mail.

During our trip, some chip-enabled credit cards were sent to our home address and were returned to the issuing financial organizations. (Our main bank actually sent out both a
credit card and a debit card.)

When those cards were returned, those accounts were marked as "bad mailing address" and
further mailings to that address were suspended. That meant that we did not receive the next normal credit card bills. I don't remember if we had a similar problem with Edward Jones financial
investment statements.

You might carefully check the rules on forwarding and holding with your own local post office.

BTW - We also heard that a "Thank you!" note that our nephew's wife sent in acknowledgement
of a "baby shower" gift was returned to them. I don't know why. 😕

On a subsequent extended trip of only several weeks, we simply had our mail delivery stopped
and they held our mail at the post office. In that case, things seemed to have worked out better.

Good luck and safe travels to all! 😊

Ray






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[JackieLynn]

The post office does not forward credit/debit cards at the bank's request. The envelope will be marked "return service requested". It is not a local post office decision. I suspect it is done to counter fraud where a criminal might put in a change of address without your knowledge. You can have "Premium Forwarding" by the Post Office to an address for a charge. The Post Office will hold all your mail and mail it to the address you have given once a week. It is different from the regular forwarding service and does not affect bank statements and other correspondence.


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[rdickens]

Thanks for that enhanced/expanded explanation!

In our most recent new neighborhood, mail service has not been as reliable as it had been in
years past. Several neighbors have complained.

One day, I found that all of the mail in our box was actually for the neighbor across the street.

In the last couple of weeks, the next door neighbor brought over a motor vehicle license
reminder card for our vehicle. It had apparently been dropped in her yard and then run over by her lawn service.

While our mail was being forwarded, I still have no idea why the "Thank you" card was returned to my nephew's house.

When we had our mail held, we were told that normal mail delivery would automatically resume
when we picked up our mail. I didn't know if it was possible to have a relative stop by once in awhile and still continue to have the mail held at the post office.

I guess that I need to investigate the cost of premium forwarding?

Like the OP, I guess that we didn't have a good understanding of our options and the possible
Implications of our choices.

Ray




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[Denece]

We used a forwarding service for many years ( St Brendan's Isle in FL ) choose where your service is carefully since your mailing address can be considered your domicile for taxes, drivers/car licenses, voting etc


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[Byron Kinnaman]

We travel 3 to 4 months at a time and here's how I've handled the mail thing. First and far most we managed to stop most the mail. Very few adds, no bills or very few in the mail.
I forward my mail to my daughter. She screens the mail for anything she thinks is important and or texts, which I get some time later. If we thing it's important we'll have open and read it us over the phone. If we're going to be in one place for a while we'll have send what she's collected to the General Delivery close to where we are.
The only drawback we found is magazine subscriptions, USPS notifies the publisher we've moved.
All bills are auto pay, all income is direct deposit.