Hi,  my wife and I will be going full-time in our motorhome this Fall.  Have several winters as snowbirds so haven't had to be real concerned about mail.  We have finally gotten rid of the house and 40+ years of "STUFF" and hitting the road this Fall.

I would be interested in more suggestions as to what services you use for mail delivery.  Have looked at possibly using UPS as an interim method until we decide on another service.  What services are others using and what Pro's and Con's go with these?

We use the mail services of the Escapees RV Club out of Livingston, TX. We've used them for over two years and have no "cons" with them. They have been absolutely top knotch to work with and have forwarded our mail to us exactly as we have instructed them - every time. It costs us $105 per year plus postage for the service and we feel it is well worth the cost. You do have to be a member which costs another $70 (I think??) but we were members anyway and will continue our membership.

We also use Escapees without issue.
Actually are considering doing away with it all together, as all we get are magazines and junk mail. For licenses and legal paperwork we use my daughters address in Wisconsin.
Good luck with full timing, I'll bet your going to love it.
Fred

Welcome to the full-timing life! You will not regret it. We established our domicile in South Dakota and use My Home Address, Inc. for our mail forwarding. We're very satisfied with their service.

We have used Travelers Remail out of Arlington, Texas for the past two years and are very satisfied with their service. They are very efficient and pleasant to work with.

Since we are Florida residents we use Good Sam's mail forwarding service which is located in Pensacola. We've used it for almost a year and have had no problems. We will probably eventually change to South Dakota just for insurance savings as FL insurance is pretty high. Even though we never even go there we still have to pay those high rates for hurricane coverage.

For our first month and a half of fulltime RVing the US Postal Service left the box number off of the forwarding address (it was suppose to be forwarded to the UPS mailbox).  This is very disappointing and frustrating as all of my husband's mail got returned to their senders. 
-C

jdensie wrote:

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We use Americas-Mailboxes out of Rapid City, SD.  Great people to work with and they take care of all of our needs.  Since we are traveling at the present time it will be a month between our mail delivery.  We usually get it every two weeks.

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I second that vote for Americas-Mailbox. They are great to work with. Besides forwarding your mail, they will also go down to the DMV and handle your vehicle registrations for you (for a fee of course).

That brings up another point I'd like to make. Selecting a mail forwarder can be driven by two non-exclusive desires. The first, and most obvious, is to get your mail. But the second, and I believe just as critical, is to establish domicile. We went with Americas-Mailbox because they are located in South Dakota and using them allowed us to take one of several steps we are taking to establish our residency in SD. Besides getting an address, we also registered all our vehicles (rig, toad, bike, bike trailer), got drivers licenses, moved our bank (stayed with Wells Fargo, but changed branches), and obtained vehicle insurances. Next we intend to obtain health insurance out of SD (probably with BCBS), file our Trust, get wills registered, and, most important this year, register to VOTE!

So, the decision to use one mail forwarding service over another needs to consider these other factors as well, especially for us full-timers. A UPS PO box number just won't cut it.

I've used a UPS solution for 9 years. Not a single complaint. Everything, I mean everything, I have is pegged to that full fledged street address. Note that some of these type stores also have to add the "suite" number of the store within the strip mall meaning your address will have both a street, a suite, and your "pmb" (personal mailbox) number. It might be easier to find a location that uses just a street and then you just add your pmb number.

(example
"123 Main St., #456"
or equivalently
"123 Main St.
pmb 456)

One advantage of the UPS type solution is that they are in every state. This may be important as the location of your forwarder (hence your general address of record) might have a direct impact to support your state of domicile.

One other nice aspect is that these stores store your frequently used addresses that you UPS stuff too. Hence, if I need to send something while on the road I just go to my local UPS store and everything is already on file. Bang, it on it's way.

Remember, you have only ONE UPS store that is your mailbox and ALL your mail goes there - to that ONE store. Upon your request, THAT store has to box and resend (via UPS of course) your pile of mail to where (any valid address) you tell them. Things don't just get "automatically" forwarded to other UPS stores.

www.theupsstore.com