I live in the US, if that makes any difference. When a family moves overseas, how do they get their furniture, vehicles, etc to their new place of residence?
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Well, price up what your goods are worth against what they will cost to ship and potentially pay tax on in your new country.
Unless you have lots of stuff and it’s expensive, you may find it cheaper to simply re buy in country.
There are many freight handlers that will help you organise containers to get your things shipped.
First of all, many people don’t bring much when moving very long distances, as the cost of transporting it can often be more than just buying new things instead. That’s a serious consideration.
Otherwise, generally everything would go by boat, this is common and normal and lots of companies operate in moving whatever the hell you want to move from point A to B.
Most things are shipped. But, that being said, that’s really most things left are shipped.
Most people, when they move overseas, tend to sell a lot. Especially big items, because it’ll be easier and cheaper to buy replacement when you get there.
The only real exceptions are military families (they get free moving for this) or the wealthy who can afford it, and some people relocating for a job. But only some and usually not everything.
You can load things on a standard shipping container and hire a trucking company to take it to a port. Then it will be sent from that port, to any port in the world. Then there are trucking companies that will haul it to the final destination.
The shipping containers have been standardized worldwide. You can always tell an overseas shipping container as it will have specially reinforced corners with holes so they can all be bolted together so they don’t fall off the ship:
https://www.iport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/containers-for-sale-20-foot-standard-container-new-right-2.jpg
They come in several different lengths, 20 foot, 40 foot and I think 53 foot is the biggest, but I’m not sure.
We didn’t move furniture when we moved to Japan but we shipped everything by plane. We each packed a suitcase and carryon (keeping our most valuable things with us) then movers came and packed everything up and took it to a cargo plane.
Most large things such as cars, furniture and appliances are sold, rather than shipped overseas. It’s easier and cheaper to buy these things in the new country, especially due to different regulatory and utility standards in the new country.
If something is more valuable than the cost of shipping, they get sent over via a ship. You contact a shipping company, drop off your things at their dock/shipping center and they ship it to the new country. When it arrives, you go and pick it up. This can take several weeks, as they only leave the originating country once their ship has enough cargo to make it worth it.
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