Shipping souvenirs home from Europe.

Since you are traveling around (presumably with minimal luggage) either purchase souvenirs that are easily transportable (textiles, for example)or ship bulky items home.

Post offices in Europe will accept properly boxed mailpieces, but be aware that the incredible surge in postal rates these past years are mirrored there as well. Forget shipping heavy items - prohibitively costly! I take these (books, for example) in my luggage. Same goes for alcohol. Delicate items may survive in a well-packed suitcase, though, if you pack them carefully.

I always travel with the maximum allowable luggage, so that I can take family gifts home, but then again I can deposit my suitcases in one place until return to the USA and so travel light in Europe.

Hi, Kathy! I sent home three boxes to myself from France last summer and all three made it home before I did, on my six- week trip. Ahead of time I packed a plastic bag with the items wrapped/padded, ready to go. The post offices sell the same pre-paid different sized boxes that we have here in the US. The smallest size, like a big shoebox on steroids, was expensive- about 35 euro and that was last year- so nearly 50$.

I had to weigh (literally!) the stress of wondering if those items would ever arrive back home, as well as the cost, against the stress and load of lugging them around with me for weeks.

That said, it will also depend on the country! Twice I tried to deal with post offices in Italy, on another trip, and the lines were horrific and both times I abandoned the effort. However, if you are an art person, the larger museum shops will also ship posters and the like. In Venice we shipped home a poster from the gift shop and dropped some ties my husband bought.

oops- that should've been "dropped IN" some ties! And now that I have more words, I also stuffed some postcards and misc. stuff from my daypack to the poster tube before they sealed it.

In Italy mail from the Vatican. I mailed copper pots home from Paris (back when the dollar was worth something) and found only certain post offices handled shipping parcels. Before leaving one country and heading to another, I would bundle all my stuff for that country in an envelop I brought from home, which I had pre-addressed and taped all around, and mailed it home. Never lost anything.

Hi Kathy,
I have done this a few times but it was more expensive than I thought it would be ($75 in '04 for a box the size of 2 large cereal boxes). Also it was inconvenient having to go to the post office & buy a box then back to the hotel to pack it and then return to the post office. When in a wine town we looked into buying some and having them ship it home but for $60 worth of wine it would have been $100 to ship. We carried the bottles with us instead but that was a bit of a hassle too. I've resigned myself to enjoying wine/Limoncello in the country and not trying to bring it home, other than maybe one bottle I buy at the end of a trip. Another thing we did was ship clothes home and put our precious souvenirs in our backpacks so we had them with us. It was still expensive, but if the souvenirs you buy are light weight it could be worth it. It's worth making a list of types of souvenirs before you go so you have certain things in mind when shopping. Enjoy your trip!

Has anyone ever used DHL or UPS to ship stuff home?

Good question. I was wondering about UPS as well. It might be safer than using the post office.

I used to always send stuff back but in the last 4-5 years it has been crazy expensive- I broke down last year just to send a few books home from the UK and it was over $20 for a small package. Cheaper now to buy an extra bag and check it. sad but true