Shipping from Europe to USA

[Peter Corlett]

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 10:31:46AM -0700, Steven Stengel via cctalk wrote:
> How do I ship a 50 pound computer from Europe to the United States? Who has
> good rates?

"Europe" contains so many diverse states and cultures that you're going to have
to be a bit more precise about where in the 4 million square miles of Europe it
is. A country would be a good start, but a province or city would be better if
it's a large country. Likewise, it can matter which US state it's being
delivered to.

You will also need to be more precise about the weight, since "50 pound" sounds
like an estimate. In particular, 50lb is 22.7kg, and a common price band is
"under 20kg", so if you can shave 2.7kg off it, you'll save money.

To give a guideline price from the local incumbent, PostNL will charge €105.30
to shift a 20kg "pakket" (no larger than 1m×50cm×50cm) from the Netherlands to
the USA. If it's 20.001kg, they'll tell you to get knotted with your overweight
package as they'll only do up to 30kg within Europe. "About a hundred" is also
in line with quotes I had for shipping ~20kg from London to Houston a few years
back.

It's possible that you can find somebody who is prepared to forfeit their hold
space on an international flight and take their personal stuff in hand luggage.
Baggage handlers can be clumsy, thieving little buggers, but they're still
nowhere near as awful as couriers.