How to Stay Connected to Your Mail While Traveling the World
We made the decision to travel the world, but one of the many things that concerned us was how to deal with physical mail. This was especially troublesome for us because I was midway through the Italian dual citizenship process and had requested items from courts and government offices that were backlogged in the system. Some documents I had requested would take nine to twelve months before they could be sent to me. There was no way I could afford to have a birth certificate or death certificate get lost in the mail and have to request it again through such a long process. While your mail might not be quite as hard to replace if it gets rerouted, there can be serious consequences if you don’t answer certain mail in a timely manner. And if you’re traveling, do you really want to be worrying about your mail?
We considered having our mail routed to a close family member, but that’s a lot of responsibility to put on someone. And what if their life got busy or something happened and they accidentally missed letting us know about a critical piece of mail? And with no end to our travels in sight, would that be an unfair burden to put on someone, since it might require scanning or photographing mail and potentially mailing documents to us or depositing checks for us. That all sounded like too heavy of a lift to ask of anyone.
Some of the services Traveling Mailbox offers
We decided to research paid options, found Traveling Mailbox, and have never looked back. There are other companies that provide similar services, but we have found that for the price we pay each month and the types and quality of the services we receive, we haven’t had to look at competitors. It’s a service that's worked seamlessly for us for nearly two years. If you want to watch our Q&A video on YouTube where we discuss this topic, here’s the link to it. Otherwise, keep reading for how it can help you, too.
In order to set up an account, you need to submit two forms of identification for security purposes, which means that it’s fairly unlikely someone will be rerouting your mail without you knowing it. Mail you choose to be shredded is done in a secure manner, and employees have to go through a vetting process due to the confidential and important role of handling mail.
Once you’re subscribed, you pick a city and state from their list—some are more expensive, but you may want a particular state for personal reasons. You then receive a mailing address with an address and a unit/suite/apartment number, not a P.O. Box. Just like moving to a new address, you notify the post office of the change of address, and update your common vendors and friends and family, etc. of your new address for mail. Our last known home address was in California, but having a virtual mailbox with Traveling Mailbox that has an address in North Carolina does not change where we vote in state or federal elections and does not change your residency. If you want to change your residency, that is a different process.
What Happens When Mail Arrives
When mail is received by Traveling Mailbox, they will sign for any documents that require a signature, scan the envelope and email a notification announcing that you’ve received new mail. You can access the scan by logging into their website or using their mobile app. Reviewing the envelope scan gives you just enough information so you can decide what to do next. You have multiple options. Traveling Mailbox will do the following at this stage:
Open and scan the contents so that you can decide next actions, and if you desire, automatically forward the scans to Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and OneDrive.
Forward the item to you by hard copy using your delivery method of choice
Shred
Mark as junk mail
We shredded this junk mail without opening it
You can save money by marking mail as junk, which doesn’t count against your monthly pages scan. Often bulk mail is not worth scanning and is probably junk.
Sometime we can guess what’s inside an envelope by looking at the exterior, but typically we will request that the envelope be opened and scanned. If the envelope is large, there’s a notification that it might contain a lot of pages and you can decide if you’d rather have it forwarded to you versus scanned. We’ve always gone ahead and had it scanned, but the nice thing is that you get to choose. After the mail has been scanned, you’ll get a notification to log into the portal where you can view the scanned pages and take one of the following actions:
Download the scanned pages
Deposit a check
Forward the hard copy of the item to you for handling (either individually or in bulk)
Shred
Shred and delete item from your view
Store hard copies of your envelopes and packages up to 30 days for free and a small charge per month beyond 30 days; digital scans are saved until you delete them
Even though we don’t forward our physical greeting cards, it’s still nice to see them!
Traveling Mailbox will scan greeting cards inside and out opened flat. The inside isn’t shown here, but it’s scanned as well. Request that friends or family don’t tuck in other items such as scratch-off lottery tickets or other tchotchke because they don’t scan those items! Checks will get scanned, of course, if someone is thoughtful enough to send you one inside a greeting card, and you can request to have it deposited into your bank.
Virtual Office Has Additional Features
It’s always worthwhile to dig deeper into the tools you use on a regular basis. In preparation for this article I learned about features that I didn’t realize or forgot existed because I don’t typically use them! For instance:
Scan a PDF and Traveling Mailbox will print it and put it in an envelope and mail it for you
Fax a PDF from a scan you upload
Receive faxes on your behalf by requesting the sender include your unit number with Traveling Mailbox’s fax number
Final Thoughts
Getting in touch when you have questions is easy
As with any tool, you may have questions or issues. We like that the customer support team is responsive and there are many ways to get in touch with them. When I had a question regarding this article and emailed them, I received a response in under two hours.
Because we’ve had stellar service from them, we earn a small fee from them at no additional cost to you if you decide to try them out. Using our Traveling Mailbox link helps us to continue to travel the world and bring you great content. We only recommend products we love and use ourselves.
