Florida, Here they come!

Submitted by Maximillian Morise on 21/11/2019

It’s my senior year of high school and I've been accepted to attend college in the city where I currently reside, San Antonio, Texas. However, my parents just announced that they have decided, upon my graduation, to move out of state to Florida. My first reaction was shock followed by disbelief but my parent's advised me that I could choose to stay in Texas and attend college but their move was going to happen. Instead of sulking, I decided to embrace their decision and even offered to look into practical ways of moving state to state to help ensure that their move went smoothly.

After some online research, my first suggestion was for my parents to do as much research as possible about the new state. I advised them to check the demographics of the area they are considering, check the crime rate, and look into the quality of the schools. My next suggestion was for my family to visit the area in Florida that they are considering transitioning too, and they did, as we have visited the area on three different occasions. It was an easy visit, sort of a mini-vacation, since it's the beach area of Destin, Florida. Next on the list was researching home prices in and around Destin.

My family quickly found out that Destin proper was very expensive however; if they went west about 26 miles away, their housing allowance would go further in Navarre, Florida. Navarre is a gorgeous, less populated little town with white sand beaches with the prettiest blue water I’ve ever seen in the state of Florida and with housing prices being less expensive and the schools rated well, my parents decided to begin online house hunting in Navarre. Back in Texas, we began the “purge” both in preparation of me going off to college and my family moving to Florida.

We cleaned out the garage first. My father got rid of old paint cans, lawn equipment that no longer worked, and even old bikes than no one had ridden in years. Why pack stuff from state to state that you don’t need? In our homes interior, we purged our bedroom closets, storage closets, the kitchen cabinets of old pots and pans, and decluttered our bathroom cabinets. We got rid of old hair products and we even purged linen closets in preparation for the move. Two weeks after returning home from Florida, my family found a home in Navarre.

My father was so excited that he came home with 30 large boxes, bubble wrap, packing paper, and tape. He figured there would be plenty of boxes to pack up our 3600 square foot home in Texas. We began our packing in the kitchen and after wrapping all of the glassware from the Butler’s pantry, packing all of the large pots and pans, food storage containers, small appliances such as the toaster, blender, mixers, knife block, and coffee maker, my dad realized we had used almost half of the boxes. At this point, my dad figured that this may be a bigger job than he initially envisioned so he set out to explore all of the options for a state to state move.

He found a few ways that my family could move to Florida: Rent a large tow trailer, find a cheap moving truck rental, use a moving container (POD), find the cheapest state to state moving company, or ship our furniture out-of-state. After extensive research, my father found that a state to state moving company was not only reasonably priced but also would be the best option for our family. We received moving estimates and the moving company my father selected offered moving service packages, so by bundling different options, he could save more money.

Some of the convenience services my father added on included, the packing and unpacking feature. This would save my family time as both of my parents work long hours, and both of my siblings and me are involved in extracurricular activities so finding the time to pack up such a large home would be difficult. My father also took advantage of the automobile transport service since we had 5 cars and only 4 drivers. He also chose the companies moving protection just for added piece of mind.

The day of our scheduled “pack up and move”, the company showed up promptly at 8:00a.m. It was a full day of packing and loading the truck but the team of movers was both professional and courteous throughout the packing process. Once the truck was loaded, the movers provided my father with an inventory list, a copy of his insurance, and a document that clearly indicated the expected date of delivery. Our furniture was scheduled to be delivered to my parent’s new home in Florida, 7 days after our home in Texas was packed up but unfortunately, there was a hiccup with my family’s new home and their move-in date was delayed by a week.

No worries though, my father contacted the moving companies main office and found out that they offered storage services so my family had the added comfort of knowing our house hold belongings would be safely stored while my parents awaited our new move-in date. My family got a hotel for a few nights and couldn’t have been happier once they were notified that the house was available for move in. They could finally contact the state to state moving company to arrange for their furnishings to be delivered.

The moving company unpacked my familie’s belongings, assisted with setting the beds up for my family, and even hauled away the moving boxes. The state to state moving company made what could have been a taxing and stressful move a seamless transition from Texas to Florida. To this day, my parents agree that hiring a reputable state to state moving company was the best decision they could have made. Now if the movers would have just reminded my parents to get the utilities turned on!

Submitted by Maximillian Morise on 21/11/2019