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Receiving mail and packages from the road can feel overwhelming when starting the process of transitioning to full time RV life. As with most things, you will learn as you go. Here are a few tips and things to know as you get started.
Receiving Packages:
Traveling long enough you will need to order things online, there are many options for receiving packages, and the rules will vary as to where you are in the country. Most campgrounds will allow you to have packages delivered to the front office and you can go pick them up. Sometimes the campgrounds will charge a fee per package. Some campgrounds will require you to put your site number on the package so it is delivered directly to your site and not to a front office. Sometimes campgrounds will refuse any packages sent to them. We really only have found this to be the case while in the Pacific Northwest area. Pretty much all of the campgrounds in that area would not let us have packages delivered, or a few of them would let us have packages delivered after we filled out a form and explained why we needed the package delivered. But for the most part RV Parks will allow packages and mail to be delivered. It should be noted that most state and national parks do not allow mail delivery.
Amazon Locker: Amazon packages can be delivered to an amazon locker, when checking out there is an option to have your package delivered to an amazon locker near you. We have been in some locations where there were no amazon lockers close by, but this hasn’t happened often. Usually amazon locker locations are a gas station or pharmacy.
United States Post Office: Most post offices will allow you to have packages shipped direct to the post office, and they will hold it for 30 days for you. This is called General Delivery. You can check online to see if the specific post office you are wondering about accepts general delivery packages. While in the Pacific Northwest area we found that a lot of the post offices there would not let us receive packages delivered by Amazon, UPS or FedEx, they only accepted USPS packages. We haven’t found this to be the case for most other areas of the country. You can call the post office ahead of time to see what you can have delivered. When addressing the package you will just write:
First Name Last Name
General Delivery
Address of the post office
City, State Zip
Fed Ex and UPS: Most FedEx and UPS locations will let you pick up packages but will charge a small fee. Call ahead or check their website for specifics. We have also found that if a package is returned from a campground or the post office that was delivered FedEx or UPS that it will go to a warehouse facility. We called FedEx or UPS and inquired about the package and they held our package there for us to come pick up. This is not ideal, but saved us a few times when we didn't check the campground or post office rules before having a package delivered.
One time we had an important package returned and we had to drive 2 hours out of the way to pick up the package at a UPS facility. We picked it up on our way to our next stop, so we had the camper in tow.
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