Shipping a box to US

We sent a box from Avignon, France back in June 2016 and the cost was €57.
We went to the post office (La Poste), and they showed me the boxes available for international shipping.
The biggest box was just a bit larger than a shoe box, and the weight limit was 5 Kilograms.
The post office agent made sure the custom forms were filled out correctly.

The only reason we sent this package home was because we didn't want to log around the extra weight for 2 weeks!

You may also consider checking, Mail Boxes, Etc. for bigger boxes , and possibly better rates.

Hope this helps.

Just a few years ago I sent three posters in a 3" x 36" tube from Lyon to the West Coast U.S, and it was about 40 Euro for shipping. After that and before shopping at Paris flea markets I bought a 20 Euro rolling bag, filled it with stuff, and took it home with us.

If you’ve shipped anything in the US in the last few years you know that shipping has gotten very expensive. From Europe multiply the cost by 3 to 4X. Then there is insurance. So, unless you are buying very expensive stuff the shipping will often be much more than the value of your goods. We bought ceramics in Deruta on a RS tour and the factory shipped them. It was a bit less expensive but still pricey.

When we were in Perugia we sent several boxes back to the U.S. through (I think) FedEx, and they were very helpful, but it was quite pricey. I think three large boxes came to over 200 euros. We also shipped a much smaller box home from Florence using the Italian post office. The problem was that they needed an exact weight, and the post office did not have a scale we could use to weigh it. We had to lug the box to another location (a bit of ways) to weigh it, and then bring it back to the post office. Perhaps this was just an idiosyncracy of the Italian post office, but beware. Peter

These are some of the international pre-paid box options from La Poste de France, only found in French, so far. You'd of course be buying in a post office, or indeed, MailBoxes,Etc. could be a good option to compare services.

Postage from France to the U.S. is expensive. I find it better value to just pay for another checked bag. It costs a littlemore, but the volume you get to use for the price is a lot more.

What we do is always carry an expansion bag which we use as a carry on for things like dirty clothes for the trip home and pack our valued items in the checked bag. We once shipped a box home from Paris before continuing to Spain as we didn't want to carry a lot of stuff and it cost way back then over 40 Euro for the standard larger box.

For several years now, I have sent boxes from France to the U.S. while on vacation. Through the post office, you can purchase a Colissimo box. The XL ( largest they sell) cost 55 euros last September. Maximum weight of box is around 14 pounds. This includes insurance; however, be aware that it's nearly impossible to obtain compensation for items that break during shipping--even though your items might be very well wrapped. I've had very disappointing experiences with this over the last few years. I don't know if the issue was on the French or American side. If the items are fragile & you care about them a lot, I suggest bringing them back in a backpack that you can stow overhead. I did this very successfully with some pottery.

Good luck!

Yeah I don't think breakage is ever going to be compensated as it is 'your fault' for not packing well. I included a can of duck confit in a collisimo box that was mostly clothing and so well padded. The box arrived without signs of damage but the can itself was badly dented -- anything breakable would have been smashed.

At the airpirt We just check a box of souvenirs as an extra bag. You can ship 50 lbs for whatever the airline's cost... Last time it was $60 for a box full of copper cookware , jars of jellies, etc.

BlThrough the post office, you can purchase a Colissimo box. The XL ( largest they sell) cost 55 euros last September. Maximum weight of box is around 14 pounds.

See, this is what I mean (and i understand you may have been happy to pay that 55€; everybody's priorities are different): by paying 70€ to check an extra bag, one can bring 50 pounds. Not much more money; a whole lot more allowance.

Or if you travel as we do with one checked bag and one carry on item -- messenger bag, you can carry on an additional bag on the way home. It is easy to buy a cheap bag in Europe or we just take an expandable duffle in an outer pocket of the suitcase and flip it out when it is time to go home.

I've started bring cloths that no longer want into my checked bag. Socks, underwear, shoes, jeans and shirts. As I ware them and they get dirty I put them into old bags and put them in the trash or recycle bin. This gives me plenty of room for all of my purchases. No expensive postage, waiting in line at the post office. I also don't have any extra bag fees.

I’ve seen that comment occasionally: I think hotels would greatly appreciate not becoming the trash receptacles for our old clothing, especially considering how many tourists they accommodate each year. Imagine staying at a friend’s home and leaving a bag of old clothes in the bathroom as you leave!

Ya, I have seen that recommendation before about leaving behind old and dirty clothes. Even worse is the suggestion -- "Give them to the Maid." To me that is very condescending travel attitude -- those poor Europeans will appreciate our old, worn out, dirty underwear. Trash is trash whether it is in the US or France. We just bring an extra light weight bag. Pack it with dirty clothes and check it. It doesn't make any difference if that bag is delayed. Then we use the carry on bag for items purchased. You would have to have a lot of extra stuff to justify shipping it back separate. Now we have bought some items and had the merchant ship them. Generally (not always) the VAT save pays for the shipping.

I haven't had to ship things back to the US since I pack a packable bag when we're traveling, and we always have less carry-on bags than allowed, so I'll carry on with whatever it is we're bringing back in the packable bag, or I'll transfer clothes to it and put fragile items in the hard-side carry-on to protect them. That said, if what I want to take home can't be taken on-board, then I'll check the bag going home, packing whatever it is into the hard-side carry-on since it'll at least offer some protection (note I have airline status so I can check one bag free on any of my airline or their partners flights). The last option I'd consider, but haven't had to, is to pack whatever into a box or trunk if our carry-on isn't large enough, then check it with the airline, paying any fees if needed - I think that would likely be the least expensive option since mailing things is very expensive.

One of the cheapest ways to mail things to the US is by keeping the size/weight to what is allowed to ship as a letter (that won't make a lot of difference for luggage space, though!). We don't check luggage for our flights, so recently mailed a dozen Laguiole pocket knives (gifts). We purchased 2 XS International letter bubble wrap-padded envelopes (roughly 10x6") at La Poste for 2€ each. They can hold up to 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) and couldn't be over 3 cm thickness (a little over an inch). Postage was 13.60€ each. I discovered the key is to stress "letter", because the employee initially wanted to sell me an expensive 50-something € shipping box, but when I said "letter" he suddenly had less expensive options. Tracking numbers were printed on the receipt. Mailed on a Friday, they hit US Customs on Monday, and were both delivered on Thursday (7 days total).