I visited France a few years ago and used the French postal system to mail a bunch of stuff back to the United States. It was a flat rate (essentially as much as you could stuff in the box). It saved space and time.
Does anyone know if this is still possible and how to go about it? I would like to save room in my backpack.
Yes, the "flat rate box" thing still works (as of September 2008 anyway). The girls I traveled with stuffed as many books as they could into a box and mailed it back to the U.S. I don't remember how much they paid (I want to say 50E for a not very big box??), but super simple. Just go to a Post Office, buy the box, fill it up, and off it goes. You can buy the box and bring it back to your hotel to fill if you want, then bring it back to the Post Office when you're ready to mail. The books arrived in the U.S. about 3 weeks later, safe and sound.
