Shipping luggage home from Italy

Sorry, what's the question?

Reading between the lines. It is easy enough to do if you are willing to pay the price. To get idea, weigh what will want to ship home, go to any of the shipping sites - UPS, FedEx, etc., and plug in the weigh and you will have a price. There are shipping point all over Rome - just like the US. Or find a box, and use the postal system. Slower and not significantly cheaper.

The other alternative is to reduce your luggage. When cruising for the two of us we get by with three carryon size bags - one rolling, two backpack style. The rolling bag has the extra cruise clothes, shoes, etc. so it is never opened once we leave the ship, and it is a bit of pain to handle the third bag but we survive.

It will be VERY expensive. You can mitigate the cost by packing the clothes into their own box to ship and use a collapsible luggage that can be carried around. The post office will be the cheapest option, but least reliable and will take a long time (a few months). Mailboxes Etc have offices in Rome and will ship UPS or Fed Ex (forget which one) and will even carefully pack everything. But it is very expensive depending on weight and size.

Try to reduce extra clothes you bring and re-use as much as possible during your train tour. Or go with the suggestion above, use three smaller bags for two people and don't ship home.

ed,

as mentioned check the well known shipping vendors and see how those prices fit with your wallet.

then google for "italy post office" or something to that affect. You will find that many countries have their own post office. then you may have to root around for international shipping and such and go from there. If you have any friends that read italian, that my help and get your info faster.

one other option is if you are not really attached to your clothes, you can donate them too.

I'm heading there next sept and will be doing my homework on them, but havent made it that far.

one question. Is italy the only stop or are there others? If you are stopping somewhere before or after italy, it maybe worth investigating on shipping from there.

happy trails.

I know the conventional response is to rip on the local postal system. But it is not going to take a few months for the items to return. We have used the Italian postal system twice and it has work pretty well. Last year we had a $500 piece of art work shipped by the artist. He used Italian postal system and it came through fine. About three weeks. And it was a large package about three foot square by a foot.

Just a comment about taking months for you receive your packages.

i can say.....it will depend, so if you do ship stuff back home, ask.

When i was on my trip this past Sept, i sent several packages back home from Poland via their postal service. I chose "economy". It was inexpensive and was the reason i did so and sent more than i normally ship. The catch was that they went by ship and they probably sat in a shipping container waiting for it to fill. But 7 weeks later i did receive my packages a little worse for wear, but i did receive them. Also, the tracking that was provided worked but once they arrived on US soil, it didnt take long for them to get delivered.

So, If you can, ask how they will be shipped.

happy trails.

Do pack as light as possible to save yourself some of these hassles. How many special clothes does your cruise require? Can they be mixed, matched, dressed up or down, and worn more than once? If your first train destination after the cruise is Rome, will you also return there to fly home? Or fly from where? Any hotel that you stay in will hold bags for you, and many larger-city trains stations also have that service for a price. Rome has Laundromats, too.

Would it be cheaper to have your laundry done on the ship before debarkment then shipping the clothes home. You would need to rethink your wardrobe and make items do double duty, but as Laura suggested, you could dress up casual clothes with accessories. we are cruising next July for 2 weeks around British Isles then on land for 10 days. I haven't done my packing list, but we know we are only bringing one mid- size suitcase each.
Good luck