I moved from Cincinnati to Seattle about a month ago and figured I would share my experience/what worked or didn’t work here.

After researching a lot of moving companies I decided to use a POD shipping container. Overall I’m happy with how things went, but here is the breakdown of pros and cons:

PRO: Cheap - total cost including 1 month of storage was just under $3,000. I got the largest size pod (16 feet) for a 1200 sqft apartment. This was more than enough, I could have gone smaller and saved money.

Reliable - I was not at all worried about some sketchy moving company “having their truck break down” or handling my stuff poorly. That being said, YOU are responsible for making sure your stuff arrives safely. I spent a long time packaging all my breakables and used a ton bungee cords and ratchet straps to fully secure my things in the pods. Everything arrived in good shape, sans one broken dresser leg (pack you dresser upside down!)

Storage - I was not comfortable finding a rental sight unseen, so I stored my pod for a month ($200) and lived in a furnished apartment I found on furnishedfinder while looking for a place. This allowed me to see 10 apartments in person and I ended up with a place I’m really happy with.

CONs

Delivery - if you’re moving to a dense city it is very possible you will not be able to get your pod delivered. To deliver it they need a space 12ft wide, 40ft long, and 15 (really 16) feet of vertical clearance. I found a rental with a driveway, and was thinking “sweet this will be easy!”. I scheduled my delivery but when the guy showed up he couldn’t drop off the pod due to some low hanging telephone wires. In some places you can get permits to put it in street parking spots, they also offer a street delivery where they will park it on a road for 4 hours while you unload it, which costs $599. I ended up hiring a moving company to go to the pod storage facility, unload my pod and deliver my things to me. This added $730 to my total cost, bringing it to about $3500

Labor - you will be loading and unloading everything yourself. It’s going to be hard if you have a lot of furniture and you will likely need help so just remember to include that while comparing costs. Task rabbit is great for this.

TIPS Use moisture removers, especially if you are planning to store your pod. I bought 5 hanging ones for closets and they were all completely full when it arrived.

Use moving blankets to protect furniture

Pack all of your boxes fully so you can stack them to the top of the pod. While packing write heavy/bottom or light/top so you know how to layer them in the pod.

Place wooden furniture with their legs pointing up. *someone in the comments said this isn’t a good idea. The movers I hired told me it would have prevented the damage for my specific dresser, YMMV

However many straps you think you need… use more.

Hope this is helpful to someone, happy moving!

Edit to add more info from the comments: Uhaul Ubox is another good option that may be even cheaper

The 16ft pods have a weight limit of 4,200 lbs, the smaller pods have higher weight limits

Get as many of the same size boxes as you can for the best stacking