During the planning stage of the move, I felt I wanted a checklist to tick off as I packed, just to keep everything in check, perhaps similar to lists I had been used in my years in scouting. In this post, I include thoughts and my experience during and after the move as well as planning checklists for parents moving abroad. Of course, everyone has a different story (see Our Story and Moving Abroad: What to do then? for more information), we decided to move in a house immediately so my checklists here reflect this choice.

It takes a number of weeks for a container to turn up. For us, it took 10 weeks. Without a good amount of determination, good will from everyone and some essentials, life can soon be harder, bringing down times and difficulties… Ten weeks with three kids can be long so better be best prepared in the packing phase! The packing phase was long, thinking about it every day for 6 months, but also very quick as when movers arrived they took over the house and it all went very quickly from that point so better be prepared…

During the planning phase, a number of questions came up: essential items, what to bring or not, what to sell or not, fear of forgetting something. I include different checklists related to these concerns and a checklist of items I did not think about, where I could have saved costs, if I had packed it.

Planning

We knew we had a lot coming in the container. We did not want to accumulate too much and spend too much money so it was important to buy the minimal initially. I include a checklist of items that I bought within a couple of days of being here, real essentials.

When we started planning our move back in the UK, I initially wanted to sell all kitchen electric stuff. It then became all a big mountain to sell everything and went on to sell more essential items we had to sell. We had a number of discussions and debates about what to bring or not. Some items may be precious to you and others not, and you then make a decision about what to keep or not. On hindsight, the decision would be perhaps better based on what needs to be bought straightaway. For example, toaster, kettle, cooking stuff were a must. I ended up buying these at low cost, because I knew we had our ‘nicer’ items coming in the container, but should I have sold these I would have replaced them with ‘nicer’ items here. We decided to bring all our televisions with us. We borrowed a television in the meantime. Good decision because our television was really good and it would have cost a lot of money to replace it. My point is here that there are a number of decisions that need to be taken during the planning phase and these will inevitably influence your packing.

We decided to bring our sleeping bags and very comfortable camping mats to sleep on initially. We did not decide what to do in the long run about sleeping arrangements. We were just going to see on the way. I had sold my youngest’s bed as he was ready to move into a bigger bed so I was able to replace it here straight away. For the rest of us, we eventually borrowed beds or bought at a cheap price beds. We also bought linen. I include a list of items we bought at a later stage and reasons for these decisions.

Avoidable expenses?

After a month of being there, my oldest went to a camp so I had to buy warmer clothing, boots, etc. as I had not planned for this in our luggage. Although these are unavoidable expenses, if you know the schools where your children will go to, you may want to contact prospective schools prior moving to ask whether they have planned activities within your first 10 weeks. These types of ‘out of the norm’ activities may need different items, and knowing about them, you could be prepared for them and pack consequently. Similarly, I had to buy all new uniforms for the children. On the first day of school, they did not want to look different so schools could be contacted about colours of uniform (or on their website) and you could pack similar coloured clothes for the first few days, until you can get to the school uniform shop.

Weather

Research the weather and seasons in the country you are going to to avoid surprises. Minus thirty in the winter in Canada is quite different to summer in Australia, although happening in the same months!

We brought summer clothes with us, but by the time our container arrived we had needed some warmer clothes for different reasons: cooler days, evenings or nights, activities in the woods, camp, warming up after swimming, basic heating system, changing weather. Some friends in Australia helped us in guiding what we should pack in terms of weather and clothing. Although we had some help, we have needed to buy some warmer clothes.

Technology difficulties

10 weeks on, we are still having IT problems. We packed phones but these were not fully ‘unlocked’. It has been particularly frustrating as we were initially unable to get in touch with each other with important issues to discuss. My husband was given a phone for work within a couple of days of us being there which was great. We thought we had unlocked my phone in the UK but it did not work. Children broke the screen of my Ipad so I was without any communication for a while. We eventually found an IT shop who have been great in helping sorting a few things, but overall we have had problems and communication initially was tricky. Don’t assume you will be able to get contracts with a phone company straight away. We were surprised to find out that you need to have a been a customer with a phone company for 6 months before you can get a phone with a contract. Also, don’t assume you will be able to have a connection for WI-FI/television straight away. It took a while to sort it all out. In fact, 5 weeks for television connection!

Hope this helps anyone who may think of moving abroad!!!