Shipping luggage home

I have used a company called www.luggageforward.com to handle it. You can deal directly with the carriers too - FedEx has a luggage service and I think luggageforward just uses DHL (I used them to ship boss' stuff last year).

Leslie, how long do you plan to "backpack" though Europe? A few weeks, or a few months? It MAY be cheaper to have your luggage 'held' somewhere, then just check it on your flight home...Shipping, while convenient, chould be extremely expensive.

The comments about being expensive is accurate. How expensive can be easily checked by yourself. Go to any of the shipping companies web sites -- FedEx, UPS, etc., and plug in the weight and the shipping point.

Just for fun, I picked a random Madrid postal code and San Diego zip code, a pkg weighing 20kg/44 lbs would run about 415.00 euros by UPS. Cheaper to keep the best clothes and ditch the rest!

Check with the airlines and see what they will charge to ship the suitcase as "freight."

Check the postal rates from Spain. I know in Germany, UPS costs twice as much as using the regular Deutsche Post. Do consider selling or giving away as many items as possible to lighten the load.

There is also a significant difference putting bags on a plane as accompanied luggage (even if it's overweight) than sending it unaccompanied. It's been years since I did one but the price difference back then was $90 vs. $300. I also left my business travel stuff at Frankfurt's left luggage for a week while I traveled around Bavaria with a daypack. That worked perfectly for that trip. If you have the alternative of storing it before your flight home, it's probably going to be the better deal.

I am with Karen! I would not pay that much to ship luggage back unless the contents were worth three times the shipping cost! Better to do storage or buy as you go.

Do you need that much in Spain? Or, what can you just have for there, and then get rid of before you move on?

The cheapest way is to not bring too much stuff with you to begin with. The obvious question is why one would need both "a backpack" and also "luggage". Rick says he packs the same way for two weeks or two months. It can be done. You just need to be disciplined. And make peace with doing laundry frequently.

I shall never forget the month long trip we made in 08 with our 22" bags. We visited three countries and had to make everything work for cooler and hotter temps. I was sick of my clothes by the end of the trip, but we travelled light and came back light...well, we did have the RS foldup bag filled with dirty clothes on the way back, giving us a wee bit of space for a few treasures :-) And oh boy, did we make peace with daily laundry! It can be done if you don't care about having a small, coordinating wardrobe. Way better than paying to ship luggage back home. That money could be spent having fun!