CONTRIBUTED BY KANDY
PCSing can be stressful enough with the sorting and planning and hoping. Hoping that no other stress inducing factors will be thrown in at the same time. But with the right amount of knowledge, planning and coffee (and if you don’t drink coffee, pick your vice. Ice cream? Triathlon?) anyone can make their move a little smoother. I recently received an email regarding a DITY move from the U.S. to Okinawa. I was going to reply with a “wait until you talk to TMO,” but I wanted to know if anyone had done it.
I have been stalking Okinawa Hai for a while (well, since we found out it was our next assignment). We’re PCSing there in May. Well, we just got a notice from our base housing that our house is scheduled for demolition (I know!) and the base housing people are going to pay for a moving company. Well, the 30 day notice puts us about 30 days out of our house before we PCS to Okinawa. So… I’m wondering about DITY moves overseas. I mean, if all our stuff is going to be in boxes anyways, why not just load it on a crate and ship it ourselves? Is it allowed? Is it too much trouble? I mean, it’ll be in boxes… I don’t know. We haven’t had a chance to talk to TMO yet (we got the letter Friday afternoon) but since Okinawa Hai is such a wealth of relevant information from people who know and have even DONE it, I figured I should ask. 🙂
So have any of you wonderful readers ever done a DITY move overseas or what other advice would you give?