Taking the Stress out of Relocating
Relocating is daunting and stressful at the best of times. When you’re relocating internationally or across the country, and with a family, it can be overwhelming.
Between Chris and I, we’ve made 6 international moves, including our move from Toronto to Victoria in 2004. A few of the moves were years ago when we were both young & single, so they were pretty easy, fun actually.
My first move was from Tokyo to Melbourne, Australia back in 1992. Coincidentally Chris was living in Melbourne at the same time but our paths didn’t cross until years later in Tokyo.
One thing we have learned about big moves and relocating is that there are a million things to do, there’s not enough time to do them and it will all work out fine.
Our last move was the most stressful and hopefully it was our last move. Here’s a snipit of how we spent our last day/night in Toronto (I’ll spare you the drama of the preceeding weeks of dealing with movers, packing, etc. etc.).
- Moving truck left with all our worldly possessions, save for a few clothes and an air mattress, that the 4 of us were going to sleep on that night
- Dropped the car off at the railway yard to be shipped via rail to Vancouver
- Dealing with the dog; walks, food and other dog stuff
- Went around to the neighbors for one last goodbye
- Took a taxi over to our friends place for dinner. By this time the kids are starting to melt down cause they’re tired, hungry and bored as they have no toys to play with – and I have a splitting headache.
- So, we have a wonderful dinner with our friends, then go back to our now empty house to spend our last night there (the house both of our children were born in). Did I mention that as of midnight we technically no longer own the home as the closing date is that day? We couldn’t get an earlier flight and the buyers (a nice couple with 2 kids of their own) agreed to let us stay the night as we were leaving early the next morning.
- So the next morning in walks someone with a bunch of cleaning supplies. They’re as surprised to see us as we are them. Turns out the new owner neglected to tell his ‘sister’ that we were stayng there. Talk about your awkward moment.
- Eventually a friend arrives? to take us to the airport in his mini-van. We just barely got the 4 of us, all our luggage, and the dog, into the mini-van.
- We run into the usual hassles at the airport with check-in. We have tons of luggage, including two car seats and a big dog (Rhodesian Ridgeback). But mostly there’s a conflict about the size of the dog. Apparently Air Canada has changed its policy blah, blah, blah.
- After a heated ‘negotiation’ we all got on the plane, including Saku, and had a decent flight (we actually made a new friend) and arrived in Victoria safe-and-sound.
- On arrival in Victoria it’s cold and raining hard (late October). We rent a big truck (Yukon I think it was), jam everything into it and head down the Pat Bay Highway in search of our new home (that we do own), very tired, wet and hungry.
The moral of this story is that had we hired a Concierge or Personal Assistant we could have had them do most of this stuff:
- get estimates and hire movers
- pack household goods
- get car shipping estimates
- take car to railyard
- rent cars
- walk dog
- drive to airport
- uppack stuff
- and the 10,000 things we needed to do once we arrived in Victoria like getting health cards, BC licences, insurance, etc. etc.
~ so we could have relaxed and enjoyed the experience in a low stress enjoyable kind of way.
If you are planning a move to, or from, Victoria BC, drop us a line. We are happy to help, whether you want to hire us or just want to ask a few questions.
In the end, it will all get done and you will live to laugh about it later – but maybe not for a few months.
Happy trails…