48″ x 40″ x 52″

How do you condense your life into one pallet? For some people, maybe this is not a problem at all. Maybe they don’t get attached to stuff (or are minimalists), but that is not me! I love my things! I worked really hard for my “stuff” and it’s really nice. I have my beautiful wedding quilt that my stepmom Becky made me, the amazing Kitchenaid that I got Garrett for Christmas that we use way more than I thought. We have handmade Christmas ornaments with our daughters’ hand prints on each of them and our nice professional-grade pots and pans. The point being: I had way too much stuff that I wasn’t willing to part with to make our original plan of 4 suitcases and 4 carry-ons work. 

The thing about becoming an expat in a country like Panama is that there are a lot of people that have come before you and navigated these waters. I’m a member of almost every Panama Expat group I could find on Facebook. These members aren’t anything like other facebook groups I have been a part of, they are actually super helpful and kind. So when I knew that we needed to ship some bigger boxes to Panama I asked the other members and got a ton of feedback. 

I learned that I could set up a Mailboxes Etc. in Miami and they will forward it to my mailbox here in Panama. This is a wonderful option for things like actual mail or the occasional amazon delivery. But for a 50lb box of household items it was about $300 or more because they charge by the pound. Although, I will still be setting something similar up soon because man, I love my Amazon. 

One of the comments that came through was especially interesting to me because this man named Vince was shipping something from Spokane, Washington. This was the closest to Boise that I had seen so far. He was so nice.  He said he was shipping a pallet to Panama and had a little extra room for a few boxes if I could have them ready by Tuesday (fat chance, I was only just now entertaining this idea, how could I have anything ready in 3 days). I told him I was interested in how he did this and figured it all out, and he said “This will be way easier in a phone call, here is my number call me this evening.” He was absolutely correct. 

48″ x 40″ x 52″

I gave him a call and found out he had been shipping things to Panama for a while and does it often. He has a business here and spends half the year down here. He gave me the direct phone number of a guy named Osman that he always uses with a company called Aereo Carga Panama, he explained how to book a pallet to be shipped from our neck of the woods to Miami, where it leaves from. Turns out, it is called “LTL shipments” and it’s a perfectly normal thing that people do all the time. In the United States these shipments charge by weight (our pallet is 700 lbs) and when they ship from Miami to Panama they charge by height and width. So from Boise to Panama we ended up using a website called freightquote.com who compares lots of different LTL shipping options and gives you the prices. From there, we booked with Estes Express. This leg of our pallet’s journey was $875 with insurance included.

From there, things got a little dicey because that is where the insurance and tracking stops. Then I had to rely on Osman, who I have only communicated with via WhatsApp messages. There was a little mix up with our pallet in Miami, but it was located and sorted out in a matter of a few days. Osman assured me it would go out Thursday and arrive in Panama about 10-12 days later. No tracking, cannot purchase insurance, just my guy Osman’s word. But he always assures me “don’t worry”. Well my guy came through, and 8 days later I got a message that it had indeed arrived in Panama, he sent a picture and everything. This leg of the journey costs $280 + $35 document fees. Then he will have it sent to our home in Coronado for $80, easy peasy.

Was it hard to decide what made the cut? Honestly, not really. The criteria to make it on the pallet were: it’s either sentimental or it would cost more to replace than to ship. I’ll probably write about that process at some point in the future.  It has become a running joke with our friends here, Jeff and Debbie, because anytime some item or good is mentioned it is always (and honestly) on the pallet. 15 years of our lives and all our treasures are on that pallet. Once it finally gets here, it will be better than Christmas.