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  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    12-08-2017
    Location
    Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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    15

    Default Mail and State Residency

    What do people normally do about mail when they are thru hiking?

    I live in Iowa but my parents live in Toronto so I can’t forward it to them.

    My sister is in Florida so I could forward my mail to her but then I would lose my state residency for cheap tuition and the 2018 election.

    I could rent a post office box, but I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that homeland security frowns on this.

    I could ask a friend to handle it, but this seems like a massive imposition.

    Lastly I could just rent an appartment, pay rent in advance, and forward mail there. This would have the added bonus of being a place I could come home too when I finish. But it would also be extremely expensive and dig into the money I’ve saved for my hike.

  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    12-08-2017
    Location
    Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    Posts
    15

    Default

    I’m thinking about asking a friend, and giving her a nice thank you gift.

  3. #3

    Default

    My son lives in Iowa City,and we hiked half the trail last year. he is a recent UI grad,and I bet he would be happy to hold your mail if you want to forward to him. That would keep a Johnson County address.

  4. #4

    Default

    The PO will forward mail for up to 6 months. This should not affect your residency, as it is a temporary thing. No one sending you mail knows its going somewhere else. You can probably stop bank and credit card statements from being mailed. If you have any monthly bills to pay, set up automatic payment. Only first class mail gets forwarded, so your sister or friend isn't going to get buried in your mail. As far as anyone knows, you still live at the same address.

    I have a small town PO, so if I'm only going for a month or two, they will hold my mail longer then the usual 30 days if I tell them I might not be back for a while.
    Follow slogoen on Instagram.

  5. #5

    Default

    get a post office box. there is no frowning by homeland security as long as you meet their regulations, which have changed a bit in the last few years. $64 for 12 months.

    (my permanent address/mailing address is a po box because i move around A LOT.)

  6. #6
    ME => GA 19AT3 rickb's Avatar
    Join Date
    12-12-2002
    Location
    Marlboro, MA
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    7,145
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    Default

    As part of your mail forwarding plan, you may wish to consider this:

    https://informeddelivery.usps.com/bo...eddelivery2018

  7. #7

    Default

    Rick - I like that. Most of our mail is solicitations for donations or receipts for bills paid automatically, so we can just ignore most of it. One of the issues we considered while travelling/hiking was we wanted to know if there were any problems like letters from IRS, credit cards, Jury Duty notices, overdue bills, etc. So we had our mail forwarded to a family member. Unfortunately, said family member didn't bother looking at the incoming mail; it was just placed in a box, so we did end up with issues with an unexpected bill that wasn't paid on one of our hikes. We also discovered that credit cards are not forwarded, so that didn't do us any good when our card expired mid-hike. Having a PO Box with informed delivery would help for most of those issues. Some Mail Boxes etc. type places have a similar service where they send you images of your incoming mail and only forward the ones that you ask them to send on.

  8. #8

    Default

    I rented a mailbox...not at the post office...at the time it was called Mailboxes, Etc but I think they were bought out by UPS. The advantage of a private mailbox company is you leave a credit card number on file with them and you can leave instructions to hold your mail...then call them and they will put it all in a priority mail envelope or UPS box and mail it to your maildrop location. At the time I think I was paying $10 a month for the box plus postage each time I had them do a mail drop. That was 15 years ago so it may cost more now.

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