Hello all, I am doing a practice packing for moving to Japan, and I am a little shocked at how little I can actually take. My understanding is I get one carry one, one checked bag, and can pay extra for a second one. This will be pretty much essential when shoes, etc… are factored in.
Any thoughts on this? Does anyone perhaps ship a box once they know their permanent address?
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I made 2 international moves during the past 4 years or so. The first one I brought 1 carryon and 1 checked bag as you said, but that’s because I had a permanent address lined up when I arrived so I could fully unpack everything. 2nd move I knew I’d have to move around AirBnBs / hotels for the first few weeks as I searched for an apartment so I just brought 1 carryon, and just did laundry every few days.
But this might depend on your personal circumstances, like my work doesn’t have a dress code so I could just wear jeans and t-shirts into the office – didn’t need to pack dress shoes, nice shirts, slacks etc. Also this 2nd move was to a moderate climate so I didn’t need to pack any winter coats or anything like that. If you have to pack all of this kind of stuff you might be forced to check some bags.
And yeah I just shipped the rest of my stuff over in a box. I used sendmybag which was like $100 per box from US <-> Europe. I think they ship to Japan as well. They just use a shipping company like DHL but get better rates than if you go directly through them.
It depends on the airline, really.
For reference, here are the weight & dimension limits for checked and carry-on bags for ANA.
https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/baggage-information/checked-baggage/
https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/baggage-information/carry-on/
First time I moved to Japan I went with 2 check-in bags, as I only stayed for a year. This time I’m moving with 2 check-in, and 4 boxes that will be shipped once I find a place. Paid first extra luggage on flight both times.
Most international flights allow two checked bags. Look at your airline. Unless you’re coming in on a low-budget Asian carrier from elsewhere in Asia, you should be able to bring two.
Shipping services and bringing extra belongings are a common topic here. Did you read the wiki and check by searching past posts?
When my partner and I returned to Japan we discarded most of what we had bought in the US. However, we didn’t want to get rid of everything and needed to ship things. We used Nippon Express. They were great and reasonable I found. Best yet, as we didn’t at the time have a home here we had them hold everything in their warehouse for a very nominal fee (depends upon how much you have). When we finally bought a home and had moved to it we had them ship our belongings to us.
I had a couple of antique glass pieces, two glass table lamps, and other delicate items and everything came undamaged.
Just a warning – while Nippon Express was reasonable they are not the cheapest but you get what you pay for. When moving to the US we used one of those bargain shippers only to find out that their price did not cover actually bringing our things to our apartment but only leaving it at the curb! That, and a lot of other little things like their estimate was far below what they actually charged. I could have cancelled but we had a week to departure and there was no time.
Global Van Lines is also good but they use Nippon Express’s network in Japan and charge more so we decided to go with Nippon Express.
So I highly recommend them.
https://www2.nittsu.co.jp/dwhs/login.jsp
My airline was indeed one checked bag and a carryon. I shipped another suitcase UPS to arrive after I got there. At that time I had 2 weeks quarantine so I brought my PS5 in my hand luggage!