Uhal U-Box Review for Long distance moving.

When you are moving across state it is a whirlwind and so many decisions you have to make. One of the biggest is HOW will all your belongings get to your new place. We knew after living in FL for 15 yrs and in living in our home for the last 7 that we wanted to take the things we had accumulated. I priced out renting a semi, renting a pod, renting a uhal truck for us to drive and tow our cars. The price was astronomical. I was quoted $6,200 for two 16ft pods to move our 4 bedroom home..NO THANK YOU.

We decided to look for a different way to ship, we would have to drive our two cars to MI where we were moving back to and we didn’t want to think about driving a large truck or sharing space in a semi with other peoples belongings. We landed on U-Box by Uhal. I didn’t have to call anyone. Their online interface was a breeze to work with. Their website stated the dimensions of the box, the amount of boxes we needed to move a 4 bedroom home( 5-6 boxes were recommended and we ended up ordering 5)

We placed our order and was asked to include a photo of where we wanted the boxes to be delivered. Now there are two different styles of the boxes. One is a wooden box with an orange tarp that covers it and the other is a metal box. You can not choose which one you get which is a downside but we were wrapping our beds and other furniture that we were afraid of possible water damage in thick plastic. After we uploaded the photo of where the boxes should be unloaded we got a call a few days before delivery just to give us the time they would be delivered. They would reach our new home a week after we got there. We ordered them and they were delivered on a Thursday, picked up the following Tuesday and delivered to our new address 10 days later. I placed two AirTags in two of the pods so I would know their whereabouts and that helped with my anxiety.

When booking our pods we did have the option to chose movers from a third party company. You could chose movers to unload or load the pods. Or movers to do everything. Of course those are up charges and we decided to do everything ourselves. We had amazing friends help us load the pods and family to help us unload them when we got to our destination. But, if you want to have help you can pay for that option as well.

We received the metal boxes and each box came with 4 bags of moving blankets. Now we had an excessive amount of bags and those blankets take up a lot of space. We had 20 bags total and we used 9, the rest of the bags I was able to take to local Uhal and drop them off. I was told that they would make a note on my account and we would not be charged for it (that is exactly what happened) and we were able to use our space in the shipping boxes more efficiently. You have to buy a lock for each pod to keep your belongings safe. They would be at your local Uhal business for a few days before departure and also before delivery to your new address. We also made sure to take pictures of all of our belongings once packed so we knew what was inside and each box has its on serial number which also helped us know which one when it got to the new place.

For delivery and for drop off there will be a flatbed semi with all the pods on there and a forklift they use to move it. It took maybe about 30 min to load and unload. So not too long at all. The size of the boxes did make us pause a moment but we were able to fit everything. A king-size bed fit right inside, we had a washer and dryer, dressers, etc. I am so thankful for my husband and his packing skills.

Our boxes were delivered safely and we took about a week to unpack. We had rain in our new location for three days straight none of our boxes leaked and none of our belongings were damaged. We called Uhal and let them know when they could come and pick them up and they came and it was again hassle-free.

All in all, we spent about $3500 for the boxes which included the delivery to our home for packing and delivery to our new home for unpacking. If we ever had to move long distances again we would use his service. I heard many mixed reviews and we decided to go with this company. Like I said I was sad we couldn’t choose the metal or the wood boxes but we had a plan for the wood boxes. we would have used a tarp at the door and around the box as an extra layer of protection. We booked everything online using their website and it was very easy. They had all the measurements so that allowed us to lay out things beforehand and see where we wanted to put things and maximize our space. Have you ever used a pod for long-distance moving? How did you like it? Let me know in the comments below.