Looking for price info re: media mail shipments to VI

USPS has a calculator where you can estimate this:

http://postcalc.usps.com/Default.aspx

Christiansted zip code is 00820.

Since books are heavy, you can use your bathroom scale. And don't try to include non-book items in the boxes; they do check.

Thanks JulieKay.

Again, coming through for me. 🙂

Thanks JulieKay.

Again, coming through for me. 🙂

Hey, no worries. I can say the thing about not trying to pack other items from experience! Just use newspapers to cushion the books in the boxes.

I shipped a 70 lb box full of books from Rhode Island to St. Croix about 5 years ago via Media Mail. Paid only $20. I'm sure rates have gone up a bit, but it's still VERY economical. Plus, it only took 3-4 weeks to arrive, not bad for such a low rate!

Yeah I found out that media mail = about $.50 a pound from Oakland. That means a 30 pound box puts me back only $15. Also, since I will only be on the VI for a year, maybe a year and a half (though who knows what will happen, right??), I am keeping my five or six other big boxes of books with a friend in his garage at his home.

The other stuff I am sending either in "large" flat-rate boxes (i.e., really the size of a DVD player box), which are $16 each to send to St. Croix, or, if the thing I need to send (computer speakers and subwoofer for example) is too big for that flat-rate box, then standard priority shipping is about $34 for a 20-pound box. I have done a good job of trimming my belongings down to only $250 of stuff, plus the bike, which will be another $250.

Just a word of advice about packing the boxes... the rule of thumb is "if it doesn't shake, it won't brake" So just make sure that nothing inside is (or even can) shift around. I don't know how it is on all of the other islands, but it is not uncommon to have boxes 'tossed' from the truck to the next spot and things break or are damaged often. Use a heavy duty box and plenty of tape too 🙂 Over the years, media mail has taken anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to arrive to me. In recent years, it's almost always been between 3 and 4 weeks (same goes for Parcel Post).

I would also line the box with a garbage bag to protect the contents. Another thing that tends to happen here is that boxes get set out in the rain. We get many wet boxes delivered by USPS at work.

it could take more than weeks. i have used media mail when i belonged to a paperback exchange club. i had to quit because it was just not worth it.

My rules of thumb are: pack so it can survive a 3 foot drop on any side, somebody sitting on it, a brief rain storm, and the label falling off.

If they are expensive or sentimental books rethink bringing them.... Depending on where u live. I have a couple nice coffee table books that are getting ruined by humidity. We do live on the northside of STT where it rains pretty much daily and we have clouds roll through the living room from time to time.