Best way to deal with mail on the road

[Dano1955]

full timing now, would like to handle mail differently than i have been (brother has been forwarding)

Are there mail services that give me an actual street address that will take care of sending mail to me every couple of weeks?

[68 Whiskey]

Hi Dano,
We're looking at a similar problem. Retiring in a couple months and hitting the road full time also. As I have researched, Escapees will do this for you with the street address. They do Fl, Tx & South Dakota. Are you considering the residency part of this like we are? Maybe some of the old hands out there can answer this for both us?

[ependydad]

Yep, lots of them. I use St. Brendan's Isle out of Florida (www.sbimailservice.com). Escapees offers it as well - either Florida or Texas, depending on your state of domicile. I know there are also options in South Dakota, but I didn't look into them due to homeschool laws (they aren't as friendly as FL or TX).

[Dano1955]

Well I'm in Colorado now, would like something in the mountain west so if anyone has information on SD let me know.

Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico etc. etc. etc.

Will check on Escapees though.

[BamaBob]

Originally Posted by ependydad

Yep, lots of them. I use St. Brendan's Isle out of Florida (www.sbimailservice.com). Escapees offers it as well - either Florida or Texas, depending on your state of domicile. I know there are also options in South Dakota, but I didn't look into them due to homeschool laws (they aren't as friendly as FL or TX).

X2 on SBI - we love the service and their scanning service is really awesome!

Originally Posted by Dano1955

Well I'm in Colorado now, would like something in the mountain west so if anyone has information on SD let me know.

Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico etc. etc. etc.

Will check on Escapees though.

Box Elder SD & Rainbow's End in TX (Escapees) would be your only options in the Southwest.

My question is though - why do you care where the service is located?

The purpose of a mail forwarding service is to work for you wherever you are

St. Brendon's Isle won out for us because for an additional monthly fee, I can have any mail I want scanned and saved as a PDF. I figure for this small fee, I will probably never need to have anything forwarded! What small trickle of 1st class mail we get can be PDF'ed and that will be that. Now all we have to do is get our relatives and friends weaned off of sending us cards for the various holidays

We get our prescriptions through Express Scripts and they Drop Ship anywhere in the USA. Same for anything we order via Amazon.com - so we don't need a mail service to forward packages. Life is good

[JimFitz]

I use Dakota post out of Sioux Falls South Dakota. They are great. It depends on what you are doing whether they will honor a PMB as a "real" address. I am told you can't use a PMB if you are trying to buy a gun from a dealer

[asapdeliveryno1]

Good Sam's has a mail service. KOA has come out with one where you can choose a state. They send an email letting you know you have mail, you can look at envelope and decide to have forwarded or shredded. They can also download the mail to you.

[dahagen]

I have been using Good Sam mail service out of Florida for years. My magazines go there year round since it is a pain to change address with publishers.

[Everidge]

The UPS Store's offer mailbox service. These are similar to a P O Box except it also allows you to receive packages from any of the carriers (ex. UPS, Fed-Ex, DHL etc.) Another added bonus is that they will forward your mail, all or some, when you want. This can be done on an as needed basis or on a set schedule. Works great! I highly recommend it. If you are looking for this service, PM me and I will give you the contact info for my The UPS Store.

[jandp]

Been fulltime since 2012 and use the Good Sam Mail Service in Crestview, FL because we chose Florida for residency. Their mail service offers some very handy options such as virtual mailbox, email notification, scanning (we really like this service) and shredding as well as forwarding. We weren’t Florida residents prior to retirement and the address they provide allowed us to establish residency, vote, get our drivers license and insurance. Another RV club that offers SD mail service is FMCA and they have some other attractive benefits we find worth the membership. Hope this helps and safe travels.

[BandJCarm]

Actually, almost any UPS type store has mail boxes. We changed ALL of our addresses to that......it's an independent mailing store. We get 100% of mail there. If we are gone a long time, we just pay them to put it in a box and send it to wherever we tell them on the phone. They'll even throw out the political ads, unsolicited magazines, etc.

This works for us whether we are gone or at home. Even if I'm home, I go get mail once a week. There's no purpose I can imagine to get mail every day.

[Kevin & Judy]

X2 on Escapees.
You do not have to be a resident of the state they are located in, We have been a Michigan resident and they will send our mail anywhere we need it to be. We get it forwarded to Florida in the winter and had it forwarded to Alaska when we were there for 2 months.

[BamaBob]

Originally Posted by Everidge

The UPS Store's offer mailbox service. These are similar to a P O Box except it also allows you to receive packages from any of the carriers (ex. UPS, Fed-Ex, DHL etc.) Another added bonus is that they will forward your mail, all or some, when you want. This can be done on an as needed basis or on a set schedule. Works great! I highly recommend it. If you are looking for this service, PM me and I will give you the contact info for my The UPS Store.

This works perfectly if you are not fulltime

Fulltimers need a dedicated mail service that can do a variety of things PO Box places cannot - for instance, does the UPS store have a POA whereby they can receive registered mail in your name and open it (and scan it to PDF for you?) How about Tag renewal? License plates?

This is where the dedicated mail forwarding services (who have been in business 40+ years) really shine.

The top of the crop (no particular order) is:

St Brendon's isle: https://www.sbimailservice.com/
Dakota post: https://dakotapost.net/
Escapees mail Service (NB: it is central delivery to TX then FWD to their FL address): https://escapees.com/support/mail-service
MyRVMail: https://www.myrvmail.com/
TravelingMailbox: https://travelingmailbox.com/
Good Sams: https://www.goodsammailservice.com/

As I said previously, we did a lot of research, and St Brendon's Isle is our choice for providing a PMB Street address, tech features, ease of use, POA and domicile assistance and value (bang) for the buck.

[Carpercb]

In almost every small to medium sized town you will find mailbox services. They are especially prevalent if you are in an area that is popular with snowbirds. For a modest fee, example $125 per year, you can rent a mailbox. From that mailbox you can Arrange to have mail forwarded anywhere you like or you can let it sit until the next time you come through town. This also answers the question of having VA medications shipped To you. These mailing services except packages from UPS and fedex and USPS Usually with no extra charge. If you have medication such as insulin which requires to be refrigerated, they usually also have that capability to store it for you until you arrive. There is no need to join a club or pay exorbitant fees for nationally advertised organizations. You can find a much better deal by just doing a search on Google in a specific area you wish to use.

[rwaus]

Dokata post or u can do general delivery from usps

[kayo]

Before you make a decision, check your health insurance. We were considering "moving" to Florida, but our medigap insurance would have doubled from what we pay as Texas residents

[BandJCarm]

Originally Posted by Carpercb

In almost every small to medium sized town you will find mailbox services. They are especially prevalent if you are in an area that is popular with snowbirds. For a modest fee, example $125 per year, you can rent a mailbox. From that mailbox you can Arrange to have mail forwarded anywhere you like or you can let it sit until the next time you come through town. This also answers the question of having VA medications shipped To you. These mailing services except packages from UPS and fedex and USPS Usually with no extra charge. If you have medication such as insulin which requires to be refrigerated, they usually also have that capability to store it for you until you arrive. There is no need to join a club or pay exorbitant fees for nationally advertised organizations. You can find a much better deal by just doing a search on Google in a specific area you wish to use.

This is what I mentioned above.........but I just pay $90.........and a smaller box would only be $65.

They'll open any mail I give them authority to. They'll forward if I pay for it (best to wait for a pile of it). I have yet to have any box, delivery, mail, or post that they didn't handle. Are there better services? Probably. I don't know. I just know this works great. And they will pile up my mail in a box and cheerfully hand it to me when I next show up.

If you work it right, 99% of mail is like 99% of phone calls. Bogus B/S.

[DrLewie]

I use the one that used to be affiliated with Good Sam. Good Sam switched, but since I was happy with the service I stayed with them. It's worked fine except for this year. Not their fault. The PO screwed up the forwarding address and my mail was returned to the senders for 3 weeks before I knew about it. The local Postmaster was absolutely useless in tracking it down, and after my first call, refused to take my calls. We returned home and cancelled the forwarding...only then did mail start coming in, a lot of it with the yellow change of address stickers. Only two bills were put out for collection, so it wasn't too bad.

[WilliamG]

I would add that before you change residency check the state law where you live now. We sold our house in South Carolina and were going to look at SD. When we went to have our taxes done we were told that if we choose another state we would have to pay capital gains on the house sale. We used a neighbor's address to keep our tags and insurance there. For our mailing address we use Escapees out of Livingston TX.

[rwaus]

Originally Posted by WilliamG

I would add that before you change residency check the state law where you live now. We sold our house in South Carolina and were going to look at SD. When we went to have our taxes done we were told that if we choose another state we would have to pay capital gains on the house sale. We used a neighbor's address to keep our tags and insurance there. For our mailing address we use Escapees out of Livingston TX.

That's interesting I shall have to look into that. Thank you for the information.