Prepare for Your Long Distance San Diego Move

How to Prepare for Your Long-Distance Move from San Diego

Moving is an exciting but stressful time in your life. While looking forward to all the opportunities ahead, you might be anxious about your new home and leaving what’s familiar to you. An essential part of any successful long-distance move is preparation for everything to come and keeping track of what you should do before starting this new journey.

If you are moving away from San Diego and giving life outside of California a try, you should ensure that you have everything ready and squared away before making the final move. This article will help you navigate your move from San Diego to a long-distance location and take you through the most critical steps of this journey.

Stick to a Plan and Schedule

The first step for any successful long-distance move is creating a detailed plan and schedule of the timeline leading up to your move. Moving is stressful, and making a long-distance move can massively amplify your stress. Without a solid plan, you’re likely to forget important details about your move or rush everything at the last minute.

Start planning right away once you know you’re moving. Leaving San Diego behind and welcoming a new chapter in your life is rewarding if you know what to expect from the journey leading up to your move. Once you have an arrival date or an estimated date for moving into your new place, start scheduling from the day of the move to the current day.

As you plan, ensure that you go beyond a packing schedule and consider everything else you need to do before leaving. For example, plan when you will get food for your new home and any non-perishable items you can bring. Get these in advance–the last thing you want is to get settled into your new home and realize that you don’t have any food to eat.

Additionally, depending on the time it’ll take to get to your new home, prepare a bag for extra clothes, food, and toiletries. Have a place to stay in the days between leaving San Diego and arriving at your new home. If you are moving with a pet, friends, or family, plan a schedule for how they will arrive. Finally, create a to-do list, including every crucial step of the way. Consider some of the following steps when creating your unique action plan.

Update Important Documents

One of the first things to do before your long-distance move from San Diego is to update critical personal documents. While it’s not the most fun part about moving, it’s something you should get out of the way as soon as you can. Documents that you should update include your driver’s license, credit and debit cards, and mailing address. Additionally, ensure that you update your address to some of the following people.

The US Postal Service
Tax agencies
Utility companies
Insurance providers
Subscription services
Online shopping websites or sellers
Your bank
Your employer
Loan providers
Social security administration
Homeowners or rental insurance agencies
Loved ones
Phone, internet, and cable providers

Along with updating your address, you will need to gather essential documents you can’t leave behind. Medical records, birth certificates, registration documents, passports, social security cards, checks, vehicle registrations, car titles, and vet records are all things to consider before making the final move.

Shut Down Utilities

Shutting down your utilities is crucial to avoid unnecessary expenses in your old home and ensure that everything in your new home is ready to go. Check all your utilities and either cancel the service or request an address change to move your service to a new location.

Additionally, you should consider which utilities you need and if there are any you could do without in your life. While you will need essentials like electricity, gas, water, and waste removal, there are other utilities that you could eliminate to save money during this time. For instance, some people choose to get rid of their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming services. If you have both, cable TV might be a utility you no longer need.

Once you’ve decided what utilities you need for your new home, start scheduling a setup as soon as possible. Contact all of your utility providers to disconnect the utilities at your current home, and contact providers in your new neighborhood to plan the activation process.

Get Rid of Things You Won’t Need

As much as you want to keep everything you have now, it will likely be unrealistic to transport everything from your new home to a long-distance location. As you begin packing and organizing your possessions, put things into different categories. Prioritize things you know you’ll need, such as medications, essential clothing items, and a few objects with immense personal value.

Reducing what you bring to your new home can significantly reduce moving costs. As you go through your closet, find clothes you no longer wear or haven’t worn for a significant amount of time. You can do this by using the one-year rule–if you haven’t worn something or used a possession for over a year, you likely won’t need to use it after your move. Consider giving your loved ones some of your clothes or donating them to a store or charity.

If you have valuable or expensive items you no longer have use for, consider selling them through an online marketplace, garage sale, or resale store. Downsize as much as you can–if you aren’t using it, don’t value it, or don’t need it to survive, you should consider leaving it behind to someone that could use it more.

Pack with Protection

How successful your move is will depend on how well you pack your items. Purchase materials to safely pack and protect your valuable items–then purchase some more, and then some more. You’ll likely go through packing materials faster than you might think, and it’s better to have extra materials that you can recycle than not having enough and risking breaking precious items.

Invest in cardboard boxes, packing paper, bubble wrap, packing peanuts, moving blankets, foam cushions, stretch wrap, and packing tape. Consider getting some of these materials from any friends or family members that have them on hand–you’ll be surprised at the sheer amount of cardboard boxes people keep, just in case. Get large, plastic moving containers to transport larger items, and have enough suitcases ready to transport your clothing. Take extra precautions with items that could break or have particular value.

Keep an Inventory List

You’re likely familiar with that irritating voice that tells you you forget something whenever you take a trip. When you make a long-distance move, that voice gets louder, and without a thorough inventory list, it’ll be impossible to eliminate that constant doubt. Begin by taking inventory of everything you plan to bring to your new home. Keeping an inventory list will make checking that everything arrives safely at your destination more straightforward.

An inventory list is also helpful for understanding how much you should expect to spend on moving costs. Your inventory can double as a packing list, making it extra valuable to quiet that voice in the back of your mind. If you create an inventory list but are worried about missing something, talk to your friends and family–sometimes, another person can remind you of simple things you’re overlooking.

Label Everything You Pack

Nothing is worse than finally getting to your new home and realizing that you have dozens and dozens of boxes and no idea where anything goes. If you don’t label your boxes, you’re likely to face numerous problems when unpacking and spend far more time settling into your home than you would otherwise.

Labeling your boxes as thoroughly as possible is crucial to making your long-distance move from San Diego less stressful. Label your boxes with your name if there’s any confusion during the moving process. Additionally, label each box by the room it belongs to, writing the name on two sides of the box.

Consider moving box labels or get a handful of permanent markers that won’t fade away before you arrive at your destination. Keep the contents of each box consistent–nothing will frustrate you more than unpacking and realizing that you have to move back and forth between the kitchen, bedroom, and living room to get through the contents of a single box.

Take Your Time

Begin preparing ahead of time to have sufficient time to get everything done for your move. When you rush and stress over everything left on your list, take a deep breath and refocus on a specific task. Juggling multiple parts of the moving process at once means that something will likely go awry or get lost in the chaos.

If you begin preparing for your move early enough, you will have time to relax, something that’s crucial during this stressful time. Whenever you notice your mind wandering or getting consumed with worries over everything left to do, take a minute to yourself, breathe, and get back to your checklist.

Move Yourself and Your Car First

If you are leaving San Diego and moving to a long-distance location within the country, figure out what you plan to do with your car. If possible, get yourself, a few necessities, and your car to your destination before the movers arrive.

Driving your car saves you money that you would spend on a car moving service or an entirely new vehicle. If you are making an overseas move, then a car shipping service is your best option–but if possible, save yourself stress and money and take a road trip to your new home.

Mentally Prepare Yourself

While preparing for your move requires packing, planning, and strategizing, mentally preparing yourself is equally as important, if not more. A long-distance move is bittersweet, no matter how excited you are about the new journey ahead. Moving from San Diego can be massively rewarding, but leaving behind a place you’ve become familiar with is a massive mental shift.

Mental preparation is even more essential if you’re moving far away from loved ones. Prepare a time to see everyone you love before you head on to the following location. Long-distance moving comes with an abrupt change, and you might not anticipate all of the emotions that come with this change. As you prepare to move, stay optimistic but don’t avoid the people you will miss. Allow yourself to accept the challenging moving parts, but make a list of everything you have to look forward to once your move is complete. Think of all the opportunities, your beautiful new home, and your exciting plans for the future.

Hire the Best Moving Company

The best way to prepare yourself for a long-distance move from San Diego is to have the best moving company to help you with this journey. Finding a professional company is essential to guarantee a smooth transition from San Diego to your new home. Selecting an accredited and well-reviewed company will bring you comfort during the process.

While you should keep a budget for your moving expenses in mind, don’t go with the cheapest option simply because of the low cost. You need a moving company that is reputable and trustworthy–otherwise, you may end up spending more costs in damages than you did for the movers in the first place.

Moving companies like Move Central are perfect for you if you are making your long-distance move from San Diego. Move Central Movers & Storage can help you with cross-country relocation to ensure your trip is seamless and as low-stress as possible. Moving should be an exciting and happy time in your life, and by hiring expert movers at Move Central, you can ensure that every step of the moving process is straightforward.

Move Central offers numerous options for your long-distance move at a flat rate and packing and unpacking services to make your move that much easier. Eliminate the stress and chaos of long-distance moving by enlisting the help of Move Central Movers & Storage. Contact Move Central today to start preparing for the exciting journey ahead.