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I'm moving from US (west coast) to Europe and I'd like to transport in some way my personal library of approximately hundred books to Europe as well. I'm wondering what is the most practical and economical way to do this? It does not matter how long the transportation would take.

P.S. Let's not consider an option of selling books in US and purchasing them again in Europe.

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closed as off-topic by fkraiem, Ali Awan, user 56513, Burhan Khalid, Henning Makholm Apr 3 '17 at 12:50

This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave these specific reasons:

  • "Questions about immigration or moving for extended periods of time (studies or employment, among others) are off-topic. Our sister site, Expatriates Stack Exchange might be a better place to ask. See also the meta post Is it OK to ask questions about immigration?." – fkraiem, Burhan Khalid, Henning Makholm
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    A USPS M-bag (media bag) worked for me. – la femme cosmique Apr 3 '17 at 6:22
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    See here: expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/1409/… – jpatokal Apr 3 '17 at 6:23
  • Not really related to travel, but rather moving to another country - thus better suited for expatriates.stackexchange.com – Burhan Khalid Apr 3 '17 at 10:22
  • Indeed, as jpatokal pointed out, and provided a link for, there is a similar question there already, that has also been migrated from here. However, I could have maybe reformulated the questions so that it does not mention 'me moving' and rather focuses on 'traveling of my books'. :-) – z.v. Apr 3 '17 at 16:14
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The cheapest option will definitely to have them transported via the sea. Now the question is more about the volume... One hundred books will probably represent 3-4 boxes depending on the size of the books. Probably more than 50 Kgs. If you send it via a regular carrier, it will cost you a lot of money. I have performed some simulations with GLS and Fedex and it will cost you above 500 €.

Sea transportation usually require a minimum volume. The carriers won't really bother transporting few boxes. Most of them are looking for at least a container or few pallets.

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    there are transport companies specialising on smaller amounts, which get bundled to full pallets or containers. Advantage is you share the cost of a full unit, disadvantage is you have to wait for delivery until the full unit is assembled which can take several weeks or months depending on where you're shipping. – jwenting Apr 3 '17 at 7:36
  • @jwenting Do you perhaps know the name of any company that does that? It would be a great help. – z.v. Apr 3 '17 at 9:02
  • @z.v. no, sorry. Over here in the Netherlands they're everywhere, I'd suggest the yellow pages. – jwenting Apr 3 '17 at 9:06
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When I first moved from the UK to the US, back in 1991, we used a shipping agent whose basic unit was the tea chest. I called them, they turned up at my London digs and dropped off as many empty tea chests as I'd said I wanted. I packed them and rang, they turned up and collected the full and unused ones. I paid a flat rate per full chest, and they went away. Some ten weeks later the full chests were delivered to my Boston digs.

I post this mostly to let you know that there is a middle ground, people who are interested in shipping more than a parcel and less than a container, and I'm fairly sure google will dig some out for you (I found a couple in minutes, but they're UK-based).

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