Mailing home purchases.

Kathy, We returned from Italy on June 30th, and just received our last box. The oil and vinegar arrived quickly, the ceramic dishes, just got here today, though I don't think it was shipped until two weeks ago. Everything was packed well, lots of bubble wrap and newspaper, no broken dishes or spilling of the oil. Shipping isn't cheap!!! Have a good time.
Dana

It's not cheap.

Even with new airline baggage charges and restrictions, you're probably still money ahead to take an empty bag on your trip so you can bring the stuff home with you. If you have to pay some over-weight charges, it may still be cheaper than shipping things separately.

I like to bring some wine home with me when I visit Europe, and I bring it myself in a bag I take just for that purpose. Bottles of wine are so heavy it can cost hundreds of dollars to ship them home, but by using a very light bag I can fill it with wine and packing and still be just under the checked bag weight limit.

The lightest-weight bag I've found happens to be this one sold by none other than Rick Steves!

A few thoughts:

1. It's possible but expensive.
2. Do be aware that you still must count items shipped towards your duty free limit.
3. Remember that all the baggage limits, at least in relation to number of bags, do not apply to international travel (to and from the US, not intra Europe) in nearly all cases.

Kathy, I thought I'd go on ups.com and just whip you up some freight costs. I even had to find a Rome postal code-used a hotel listing. I DO hope you appreciate the effort! Anyway, I did finally get to a screen that said the package may require special handling. So, no totals. I suggest you call UPS and explain you need approximate costs. That way you'll at least have an idea of what that dinnerware costs you to get it home. Keep in mind that a store may charge you for packing and shipping. Happy shopping!

Regarding duty-free limits on what you bring home, I recently discovered that these duties are much lower than I'd always assumed, like less than a dollar on an expensive bottle of wine, and they say customs will often just wave you through if the duty is so small they don't want to bother with it.

So, this is another item needing a little research, just to see what going over the limit might actually cost you. It may be less than you thought.

Most shops will offer shipping but at a cost. Otherwise you can go to the post office and do it yourself. I did this twice in Florence as I had a lot of paperwork from my business appts and business clothes to send home. It was quite simple but time consuming. There is a man in the main post office who has a desk just inside the door and he speaks excellent english and I think is mainly there to help tourists. It will involve a couple of forms to be filled out - one I had was in french - which was strange. A 3.2 kg box cost me E64. You buy your box first and then get the forms to fill out.

Maybe it was because I used a small post office (Varenna) or maybe because it was personal items (clothes I didn't want to lug around anymore) but this package never arrived. I was actually called one morning at 4:30am, PST from a man in Rome who said he worked for a delivery company and they needed my passport number and social security number in order for my package to be returned to me. I informed him of the time and that he'd woken me up, told him to email me ( I wanted a means of having a paper trail besides the post office receipt) and informed him if he looked at the packing list that I had done in the post office he would see they weren't clothes that I had bought in Italy but clothes that I'd been wearing and no longer needed. ALSO told him no way in heck he was getting either my passport or social security numbers. Lo and behold I got an email with his name, company and phone number. Called the local Italian consulante here in LA to try to get this package sent to me. That was in 2006. I still miss my favorite sweater. I'll surmise if it's a store that will be sending your packages you'll probably get them but buyer beware.

Patrick, true, they may else not bother to collect the duty if you're just over the limit (we were last time but Customs chose not to even though we took the extra step of pointing out that we were over the limit). Don't count on this though.

FYI, I know for general goods, it at least used to be 10% of the amount you were over in duty for the first $1k/person and then above that they charge you the item's specific duty.

I think Dana was one of the lucky ones. It is extremely expensive to send packages to the States. I sent a few things a few years ago and they never arrived. My sister sent some olive oil and vinegar and a few of them arrived broken. I now take an extra bag just to bring things back.

To ensure products arrive home, most folks ship by carrier (UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc) or through Vatican Mail. Italian mail is inconsistent, or worse, anything with a customs declaration gets opened ... and often items are "missing."

If you go via carrier it is very expensive. Last time I looked, to send a 10 pound package to the States would cost us about $140 on UPS. DHL was the cheapest but not by much. To send an overnight letter FedEx costs about $55.

If sending back is troubling, forget about sending it here! If you do eBay you'll note that almost all vendors DO NOT ship to Italy... as many packages do not make it through Italian mail system and that costs them $$$$$.

That said, bring an extra bag - or be prepared to pay these type of rates!

Ciao,
Ron