Full Timer - mail call

[ken90004]

So coming November, I'll be living in a 19' Gulfstream, for at least for six months, and posibble for a year or two. I realize that I'd not sure how i'll get mail. I can get a PO Box, but I really don't want to drive 25 minutes just to check the mail. Can mail be sent to a campground? What do snowbirds do?

[DebbieS]

We use a mail forwarding service that sends mail to the campground once a week. We've found campgrounds to be very accommodating. Most do not want to handle daily individual pieces of mail. The also accept packages. We give them a courtesy heads up when we expect a package. Our mail forwarding service is in SD and runs $10 per month plus postage. We've been full time for 2 years.

[bruceisla]

Originally Posted by ken90004

So coming November, I'll be living in a 19' Gulfstream, for at least for six months, and posibble for a year or two. I realize that I'd not sure how i'll get mail. I can get a PO Box, but I really don't want to drive 25 minutes just to check the mail. Can mail be sent to a campground? What do snowbirds do?

But check with the campground first ... some will not accept mail or packages ... most do, but .......

[PyrateSilly]

We also have a mail forwarding service, ours is located in Pensacola FL. With some of the forwarding services you can also thru them become residents of that state. SD, TX and FL are the usual states for them.

[paz]

Originally Posted by DebbieS

We use a mail forwarding service that sends mail to the campground once a week. We've found campgrounds to be very accommodating. Most do not want to handle daily individual pieces of mail. The also accept packages. We give them a courtesy heads up when we expect a package. Our mail forwarding service is in SD and runs $10 per month plus postage. We've been full time for 2 years.

Originally Posted by bruceisla

But check with the campground first ... some will not accept mail or packages ... most do, but .......

Some services will send mail on a pre-set schedule, some will send it on demand (whenever you notify them), and some will allow you to choose.

And if the campground won't accept mail, you can have it sent to General Delivery at a nearby post office. However, you will also need to check with the post office. Most accept General Delivery, but a few do not especially near a large city. Large cities usually only have one facility for General Delivery, and it may not be convenient to where you are staying.

[Moonrover]

We have a UPS store mail box. All it takes is an e-mail or phone call to the store to have them package up the mail and ship to any address we want. I have the cost of shipping charged to my credit card. Our store sends us a tracking number so we can follow the package and know when to go to a nearby UPS store to pick it up. Alternative is to have the package sent to our RV park office.

At the Escapee Plantation park in south Alabama, the UPS guy delivers right to a parking site number. I'm sure the same is true for many RV parks.

Since getting a private mail box, our junk mail has been reduced to a tiny fraction of what it was when we had a rural mail box at the end of our driveway.

[jpharley]

We generally find that campgrounds may accept packages but few that we have been to accept mail. We just use general delivery from our mail forwarding service. We have an on demand service and can have it forwarded any time we want. We just provide the address.

[ken90004]

That's the answer. $36 for a UPS mailbox. I can drive by the store on my way out of town every once in awhile.

Thanks!

[ROMANICHEL]

We also use UPS mail box, work great fo us, from Canada to our campground on Dauphin Island Alabama, all we had to do was to send a email, and the lady would aswer back telling us what type of mail we had, I would ask her to put magazine and junk mail aside for pick up we we return to Canada, then she would send only the important mail ether by regular post 7 days delivery but it would cost only around $5.00, if I had urgent mail then I would use UPS service more expensive but only one day delivery.

[Dog Folks]

We use my RV Mail., (https://www.myrvmail.com/) based in Crestview Florida. You can establish a box, and then you can: Read senders name and address, scan the inside to read on line right away, forward mail on a regular basis or when you want, trash any unwanted main. They are part of Passport America and are very good. We have used them for 6 years now.

[Clay L]

In eleven years of full timing we stayed in a lot of RV parks that did not accept mail. We usually moved to one that did if we were going to be in the area for a while or used general delivery.

Some post offices now limit the time you can use general delivery though. Two examples are Quartzsite AZ and Bouse AZ. I don't know how prevalent that is.

As stated above many outlying post offices won't accept general delivery and only the main post office in the area will. The area around Concord NH is an example of that. We had to drive 20 miles from Webster to Concord to pick up our mail.
Of course since we only have our mail forwarded once a week or more that wasn't a big problem for us.

We could have rented a PO box in Webster for six months for about $25 or so as I recall. I know the cost is now $45 per year since that is what we pay here in CO.
Even though we are now snow birds we still use our mail forwarding service in SD. We have our mail forwarded to our PO box here until we go south in the winter then have what little mail that might come to the box forwarded by the post office to our mail forwarding service who then sends it to wherever we are.

Here in Palisade CO the small post office will accept general delivery so friends staying with us can use it.

We had two RV hook ups put in at the house we bought last summer so our RVing friends can stay with us. As you can imagine after full timing for so long many of our friends are now RVers.