Moving from Tokyo to Osaka on the cheap.

Hi, so I am looking to move to Osaka from Tokyo next month. I don\`t have anything overly large items such as sofa, bed, table etc. Probably around 4 suitcases. Its more than I could comfortable manage taking on say the Shinkansen by myself but not as much as I want to go through the hassle and expense of using a moving company. What I really want to do is just load up my stuff in a rental Van or small truck and drive to Osaka, returning the vehiucle in Osaka.

I understand that some rental companies offer the one way return service where you can return the vehicle to a differnt branch than where you picked it up from. However the websites I have checked I don\`t seem to be able to do it between Tokyo and Osaka. Its a pain to check too, from what I can see you have to select your starting point and then you can look at the return point on a map but there is no easy option to show which branches accept returns from which locations without selecting them 1 by 1 and seeing what happens, which has been it doesnt work for me so far. Perhaps its only withing a certain range you can do one way return??

Before I ring some of the rental companies and ask I thought I would check here to see if anyone has experince in one way rentals or other any other inforamtion/ideas.

Thanks for your help.

6 comments
  1. You may also want to try asking in /r/Osaka.

    *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/japanlife) if you have any questions or concerns.*

  2. yamato takyuubin is super cheap. Ive shipped suitcase from kanto to kansai a few times.

    edit: forgot to mention they won’t touch musical instructions in my experience. if that’s your kind of thing.

  3. one-way rental is really expensive, especially for long distances. as others recommend, just ship your extra/heavy suitcases by yamato. you don’t even need to wrap/pack them, you can just send them as-is, or if you’re worried they may open, you can ask the driver to put a strap around them before sending out.

  4. I guess you could check with 赤帽 (Akabou), as they have service for small moving. As well Yamato offers 単身引っ越し (tanshin hikkoshi) which is usually cheaper than another moving company. Don’t waste your time with the big companies for a small amount of boxes as the try to come to your place to negotiate and even if you might get a good price it is a long range moving so it will not that cheap.
    Or you could use the 家財便 (kazaibin) from Yamato but I guess it will be a bit expensive. But if you have some items which might need insurance, like a desktop pc this is an option.

    Or you can put it in boxes up 30kg and send it via the post office. I did this ones when moving from Kyushu to the Kansai region and it was the cheapest and best option if you do not need to move bed, fridge, etc. You can pack you stuff make it ready to ship and call them to pick it up. Just set a date which fits you to get it delivered and the can keep it up to 2 weeks before delivery so you can easily set it up a few days before you move let them pick it up, jump in the shinkansen or plane and go to your destination. And let if ship to your new address on time.

  5. I just got some boxes and shipped them J Post to my next work place because I didn’t have a place to live yet.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like