Many students are traveling long distances to attend college these days, Not only can this be a bigger emotional toll when a trip home is most likely by airplane, but coordinating dorm shopping and getting all of your essentials to school can be a challenge as well.

This article takes you through the collective advice of many of our Dorm Shopping Recommendations & Deal Alerts group members who have gone before you and conquered the move with a combination of research, planning and expert packing!

Research & Pre-Planning

Please check the following options for shipping to/near the school before proceeding to shopping/shipping.

1. Check to see if your school has a send ahead program and if so, understand their timeline and allowance. For bulky and heavy items (like these storage drawers & towers 🙂), it would be great if you can shop online and have these items delivered to the school for them to hold until move-in.
2. Check with UPS to see if they offer UPS College Ship to your school. They will hold your packages and deliver them to school on a specified date.
3. Check with local hotels to see if any will hold items that you ship to them if you stay there. Book these hotels ASAP even if you need to create a couple of reservations now if you’re still guessing at exact move-in dates. Move-in is a busy time for hotels, and rates will go up or sell out.
4. If you might have a friend or roommate that lives locally, perhaps they will allow you to ship to their home and hold items for you until move-in time.
5. Ask in a parent Facebook group for ideas of how others moving to your specific school have been successful shipping items.
6. Make a list of things that you can ship directly after move in that don’t need to absolutely be there on move-in day. This could be small appliances such as a Keurig or air purifier. Will you be visiting for a parents’ weekend and can bring things like winter bedding, clothes and shoes later? Bring home one of the VENO bags after move-in (fold it up in to your personal suitcase), and use it to bring back a full bag of winter gear on your next visit.

What To Know About Shopping Locally At Move-In

I’ve been in Targets and Walmarts near big and small schools during move-in week, and they are very picked over and messy. If you can avoid shopping for popular dorm items that week near campus, please do!

If you just need toiletries and non-dorm items, you’ll be ok. Bedding (especially Twin XL), pillows, storage drawers, Command Hooks, rugs, mini-fridges, microwaves, fans, air purifiers, school supplies will all be well slim pickings or sold out. Also keep in mind that there is a smaller selection in store than you will find online, so for example, even if you can find a microwave, it might not meet the school size limit or wattage requirements.

If you must shop locally and you have a rental car, consider driving 20-30 minutes away from campus for a better selection.

What To Buy At home & Bring To College

There are some things that you’ll want to bring from home, as follows:

1. I firmly recommend that you buy bedding early and ship it to your home. Take it out, feel it, make sure your student likes it, and then wash it and fold it and put it in a moving bag to bring to college. You do not want to buy bedding locally and not be able to wash it before making the bed. Quality Twin XL bedding gets harder to find online as we move through the summer and especially in-store near college campuses.
2. Same plan for towels – wash before sending to school. Quick-dry towels are recommended as dorms are typically damp (poor air circulation) without great places to hang towels to fully dry. One drawback to quick-dry towels is that they tend to shed more, especially in their first couple of washes. You may want to run them through the laundry separately a time or two before packing them for college.
3. The good Twin XL mattress toppers will also get harder to find and definitely more expensive as we get into summer. The boxes aren’t that big, so to be sure you get the right one for you, I would buy these early.

How To Get All Of This From Home To College?

2 words. Moving Bags!

Moving bags are the greatest invention for college moving regardless of whether you are driving or flying. The bags can be checked in with the airlines as checked luggage. They are too big for carry-ons. IKEA bags used to be the standard, but these have been discontinued. We highly, highly recommend the VENO bags available at Walmart. Please be certain to buy the type WITH BACKPACK STRAPS. These make a huge difference when carrying bags. You will need 6-8 for a normal move by car. Consider a 10-pack for flying (you’ll want to double bag any heavy bags) or for those who are bringing a LOT to college. You know who they are!

You should be able to fit a comforter, blanket, 2 sets of sheets, mattress pad and towels in one moving bag. You can first put the linens and clothing in vacuum bags to save even more space when packing.

Clothes, shoes and other personal items can all go into moving bags as well.

Please refer to this article for a lead-up plan for move-in day including linens, how to pack the moving bags, a move-in day plan and so much more. Bookmark it so you can find it later!

Using Moving Bags As checked luggage

Assuming you can each take a couple of checked bags, you can fill up the blue moving bags with bedding as mentioned above, clothes, shoes, small items, mattress topper, fan, canvas totes and send those as checked luggage. Double bag the heavier bags.

Consider zip-tying the zippers closed and also put a brightly or uniquely colored ribbon around the handles so that you can easily distinguish your bags on a busy airport baggage carousel.

Prior to travel, double check your airline’s rules for checked luggage allowances and sizes.

Shipping From Home To College

If you do need to ship items from home to school, check out CollegeBoxes.com. This is a division of UHaul who will ship and hold your boxes and deliver them on your agreed upon date. This is often a more affordable choice than other options.

Another option is to look at Pirate Ship who will help you price out options using the major shipping carriers.

See More Recommendations From Experienced Parents

We’ve had several posts about how to tackle a long distance college move in our Dorm Shopping Recommendations & Deal Alerts Facebook group. Every situation is different, so if you’d like to read through some of these, the links below take you to specific posts in the group. You will need to be a group member to view these links. Be sure to answer the 3 membership questions when you request to join to be admitted quickly.

• A post requesting those who’d done long distance moves to provide ideas and feedback.
• Member question about their long distance college move: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dormshoppingdealalerts/posts/1326219154954974/
• A group member going from Kentucky to Miami: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dormshoppingdealalerts/posts/1424525988457623/
• Actual during transit photos and results and advice: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dormshoppingdealalerts/posts/1363897717853784
• Another during transit post with photos: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dormshoppingdealalerts/posts/1364151867828369/

Level Up Your Dorm IQ Before You Shop

If you’re just getting started with dorm shopping, please check out our Dorm IQ Learning Series. This series of articles will take you through everything from finding the right roommate to how to search for your dorm measurements and rules to measuring and planning your under bed storage space.