4 Years ago I made the move from New York to Thailand, and brought a LOT of junk with me. First thing I did is decide what I could do without, and then I sold it or stored it with my folks; then I separated out what I needed to have immediately and would take with me; and the remainder was what I shipped over by cargo ship.
For the shipping, I went direct to a company that specialized in shipping to Thailand. I did NOT use a relocation company, or one of the big movers. Last time I used a moving company they tried to double the price with bogus surcharges. Effectively I ended up with about 1/3 of a container just for my crap. Price wise it was about $1500. Door to Door New York to Bangkok (I did all the packing/boxing ). Shipping FROM the USA can be very cheap, since the boats are often half empty. The company I used was referred to me by someone in Thailand - and proved excellent.
For computer equipment I pretty much disassembled everything, and brought hard disks, motherboards and ram with me. Once here I bought new cases,keyboards, etc.. The most critical Hard Disks I took on the plane with me.
My one mistake, was getting rid of my stereo gear before I left since the voltage would be different here. I later learned that it not that expensive to have someone replace the power supply in a receiver.
Since I had lined up a work permit in Thailand, I did not have to pay any tariff or taxes on my stuff since it counted as personal possessions.
In summary - find a shipping company, don't use a middleman. And have a solid grasp of fees and tariffs involved, and how to NOT pay them. Get everything in writing, and keep asking about 'extra' fees, tariffs, and details (i.e. do you deliver at destination ?, do I have to pay storage at Destination, etc... )
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Slow Boat To Asia
Date: 2007-12-21 01:13 am (UTC)4 Years ago I made the move from New York to Thailand, and brought a LOT of junk with me. First thing I did is decide what I could do without, and then I sold it or stored it with my folks; then I separated out what I needed to have immediately and would take with me; and the remainder was what I shipped over by cargo ship.
For the shipping, I went direct to a company that specialized in shipping to Thailand. I did NOT use a relocation company, or one of the big movers. Last time I used a moving company they tried to double the price with bogus surcharges. Effectively I ended up with about 1/3 of a container just for my crap. Price wise it was about $1500. Door to Door New York to Bangkok (I did all the packing/boxing ). Shipping FROM the USA can be very cheap, since the boats are often half empty. The company I used was referred to me by someone in Thailand - and proved excellent.
For computer equipment I pretty much disassembled everything, and brought hard disks, motherboards and ram with me. Once here I bought new cases,keyboards, etc.. The most critical Hard Disks I took on the plane with me.
My one mistake, was getting rid of my stereo gear before I left since the voltage would be different here. I later learned that it not that expensive to have someone replace the power supply in a receiver.
Since I had lined up a work permit in Thailand, I did not have to pay any tariff or taxes on my stuff since it counted as personal possessions.
In summary - find a shipping company, don't use a middleman. And have a solid grasp of fees and tariffs involved, and how to NOT pay them. Get everything in writing, and keep asking about 'extra' fees, tariffs, and details (i.e. do you deliver at destination ?, do I have to pay storage at Destination, etc... )