How do full-time RVers get their postal mail when they’re on the road full time? Don Humes, the owner of South Dakota’s Americas Mailbox, answers that question. There are basically three ways, one of which Don favors over others (and which most full-timers favor as well).
And is it true that you can have large items shipped to a place like Don’s – for example a fully assembled Gold Wing motorcycle, or even a motorhome? Watch the two-minute video to find out.
##FT31
We use Americas Mailbox and have been very happy with the services they provide. VERY professional and great web site.
One thing not mentioned in the video is that Americas Mailbox charges the customer extra to receive anything above first class mail. Example, if you have an Amazon pkg sent to them there is an additional charge to your account for the handling….that will use up your account funds rather quickly.
Thanks for that very important piece of information! We’re staying at AMB campground until October (work) and have been having our packages like Amazon sent there. I just looked at our ledger online and saw the additional charges. You are right, they add up quickly!
We’ve used Dakota Post (formerly Alternative Resources) in Sioux Falls, SD for the past 16 years and couldn’t be happier. They keep all the junk and just send what we want to where we want. Even overnighted some stuff when we were in the process of selling our house. Great people that I think like their jobs.
When my late parents were full timing I was their sub post office. All their mail came to me, I separated the junk from the important and once a week put it in a “at the time $3 postal envelope” and dropped off at the P.O. It worked for the 13 years before they quit.
We have done the same thing with our son. Mail goes to his home, I review what came in using informed delivery and he opens if i need to know exactly what in that envelope. Bills like credit cards and such i can view and pay online.
The USPS also provides a service called Informed Delivery. You sign up with an email address and each morning they send you a scanned image of your mail to be delivered that day. It also works while your mail is on hold at PO. And includes notices for packages. This doesn’t completely address mail issue b/c it doesn’t get the mail in your hands. But if I see something that needs attention in my mail (a bill, notice, letter from friend) I can contact the sender from the road. Plus service is completely free. I even use it when I’m home to decide if I wanna got to end of driveway when the weather is bad!
We have several trusted neighbors who are happy to collect our mail. We give them a large “one-rate” post office box for each month we are away. They then send the box to a USPO general delivery at the end of each month or whenever it gets full. I provide mailing labels for the locations we know we will be visiting, or by email we coordinate where to ship. These boxes cost about $20 to send, and we give the neighbor another $20 for collecting, packaging and sending each one once a month.
We use escapees mail service, love it and best of all no problems
One of the lesser known PMB services is mailboxforwarding.com, based out of Michigan. We’ve been very happy with them. Reading our mail online and then downloading to our cloud box is easy and convenient. They get rid of all junk mail and either scan, shred, or forward our mail as we request it.