Community Forums

jollyjim · 03-03-2010, 05:54 PM

We have a stick house and are planning on going on a four month tour to Alaska and Canada this summer in our motorhome. Does anyone have an idea as to what to do with the mail while gone. We hate to ask a neighbor to pick up our mail all the time. The post office will only hold our mail 30 days. Anyone have any experience with this?

goforjoe · 03-03-2010, 06:30 PM

I bought 5 postal mailing boxes. My post office sends my mail each month to the address I tell them with a phone call each month.........Good Luck!

WilleyB · 03-03-2010, 06:31 PM

Hi Jim, what we do is write to those people and buisness that send us mail and ask them to hold all correspondence (some we actually phone them and ask) for the specified time we will be away. If you could have someone pick up your mail every 25 days that works too. If all the important contacts are not sending you mail then it will only be junk mail left, let the Post Office keep it, they are the ones benefiting from it.

Cheers
Willey

DancinCampers · 03-03-2010, 06:32 PM

We have ours forwarded either to my brother in MO or our son in LA. Then have them box it & send to us somewhere periodically. We stop forwarding about 3 weeks before we get back home. Worked fine for 6 months last year.

The only wrinkle I found is if you get any mail which the PO won't forward. Happened with one of our credit cards a couple years ago. Had to call the credit union & have them send us new ones to our forward address. Now I check the exp dates 2 months before we leave, and have them send new ones early if needed.

Brigadoon · 03-03-2010, 06:42 PM

We leave 5 months every year. Mail with the post office became a problem so we went to the UPS Store and now have a box in their store. We have all of our mail sent there. When we are home we stop by every 2 or 3 days to pick up our mail. When we travel we call the UPS Store and have them ship our mail to us about every 3 weeks. Works great.

We do all of our bills with on-line bill pay.

We also took down our mailbox at our home- this eliminates all junk mail as a bonus!

JCOLLINS · 03-17-2010, 06:14 AM

One option is to have someone check your mail box after certain period. Also, I would request important communicators not to send out mails for stipulated time period or to route them to alternate address. Just my 2 cents.

LindaH · 03-17-2010, 10:19 AM

Be aware that the Post Office will forward magazines for only two months; after that time, they will be returned to the publisher. This can really play havoc with your subscription!

Half Dimes · 03-17-2010, 02:47 PM

When we decided we would be doing a lot of travel, we rented a post office box. Our local post office will continue to put mail in the box. When the box gets full, they put it in one of the larger bulk boxes and leave the key to that box in our PO box. This has worked for us for the past eight years. If we're going to be gone for more than a couple of months, I contact the weekly news magazines that we subscribe to and have delivery suspended which extends our subscription time. All our bills and payments are handled electronically.

Always-RVing · 03-17-2010, 04:36 PM

For those frequent travlers, the UPS store provides official mail postal addresses. Not post office boxes, but actual USPS postal addresses. With that, you can have your mail on hold for long term or forward. Catch,,,,,, The mailbox becomes your official legal postal address. You may want that, you may not. Fulltimers often use this for all official mail, driver's license, vehicle registration, etc.

BobGed · 03-17-2010, 04:36 PM

Try contacting your local post office directly. Mine agreed to hold my mail for over two months. I gave them authorization to discard all flyer and junk type mail and all but two magazines. They were very cooperative.

Martind4 · 03-17-2010, 08:31 PM

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the FMCA mail forwarding service. We've used them for the last 3 winters with no problem. Call them once a week with the new address and they forward all the good stuff the next day, no junk mail. They recently increased the cost to $10/month plus postage. For longer terms or full timers, use their address as a home address. Works for us.

LindaH · 03-20-2010, 01:46 PM

The only problem with the FMCA mail forwarding service is that only motorhome owners can belong to FMCA...those of us with other types of RVs are SOL.

Clay L · 03-21-2010, 09:32 AM

How about a temporary change of address to a mail forwarding service? The USPS says that is good for six months and can be extended to one year.

See https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/fl...6-5284CC21528A

ChiefJohn · 03-21-2010, 09:57 AM

Our local post office holds our mail and forwards it once a week to our 'roost'. We keep them advised of where we are and how long we want mailed forwarded to that location. I think it cost about $20 a month. When we are ready to head home, we call them and they hold it for delivery when we return.