How do RVers get mail on the road?

How do I get my mail while traveling? How can I be sure I don’t miss something important when I’m on the road? We have the answers for you here. 

How long are you gone for? 

The answer to your mail and packages question can depend on how long you plan to be on the road. If you’re simply away for a few days at a time, the answer is pretty easy. 

If you’re gone for extended periods of time check out some of the creative ways we’ve handled this. We have our house here in New Mexico but have a variety of ways we get important mail on the road. 

Full-time RVers are going to have a different situation. If you’re planning on going full time, you will want to get a domicile state and likely engage the services of a professional mail forwarding service. 

The United States Post Office

The United States Post Office offers a mail hold service where they’ll hold your mail for a specified period of time. Then, when you’re scheduled to be back, they bring you all the things they’ve been holding at once. Now there’s something to look forward too - a massive collection of junk mail.

Mail hold can range from a few days to a month. What Peggy does is cancel the mail hold and then reinstate it if we’re planning to be gone for more than a month. 

Another service the USPS offers is Informed Delivery. This is a free service of the USPS and enables you to see scans of mail that you’re getting before it arrives. While they don’t show you what’s inside an envelope, they do scan and email you the outside of an envelope. If you’re on the road you can see if there’s anything important, such as vehicle tolls, and work to get your hands on those. 

We take advantage this service and it’s definitely worth having. 

Trusted individual and mail forwarding

If you’re gone for longer periods of time, some travelers have their mail either picked-up by a trusted individual or even forwarded to that trusted individual. However, know that we have heard that mail forwarding isn’t that reliable. This would not be our first choice, quite honestly. 

Also know that this commits that friend or relative so they may feel guilty if they want to get away. 

Another thing to know is that if you change addresses to a friend or relative, even temporarily, this can really mess things up. 

One poster in a forum wrote, “We travelled for nine months last year. We tried to have our mail forwarded to a friend who served a similar function as the services. The problem we ran into was that banks, insurance companies, retirement funds, etc. all received the change of address response from the USPS and they either badgered us to change the address of record, or in some cases did it automatically.”

We have also read that the forwarding of mail is very inconsistent so we don’t recommend this option. 

The UPS Store

When we were part-time travelers we had our mail delivered to a UPS Store. The advantage of this was that it was a physical street address, rather than a PO Box. Some companies will not deliver mail to a PO Box. 

When we weren’t able to physically get to the UPS Store our local store would bundle our mail and overnight it to an address at our request. Many times campgrounds would let us receive these packages so it was a good solution for part-time travel. Essentially we just called our local UPS store and had them ship the mail at our request. Of course the cost of shipping is on you. 

There are also some local companies that offer similar services to what we got from The UPS Store and our branch was owned locally. In fact a friend owned it and then sold it to another friend. 

Don’t get mail at all

Nowadays it’s not so difficult to avoid your critical mail altogether. We don’t advocate ignoring it, but most bills and recurring statements and such can be set-up to come to your computer’s in box instead of being physically sent by mail. 

In fact there are a tremendous number of instances of physical mail being stolen. If someone takes something like a medical bill or other statement that has a lot of your personal information on it - some medical bills and retirement statements even have your social security number on them - this opens the doors for hackers to do harm to your reputation. So avoiding physical mail makes sense in multiple ways. 

So having this type of correspondence sent digitally is more secure, as long as you engage best practices when receiving this information. 

Do know that if you’re traveling and go through toll booths the bill will be sent to the address of record associated with the vehicle’s license plate. Unless you’re somehow signed up with their billing system, these toll companies can only reach you by mail. 

If you have your mail on hold for extended periods of time know that the late fees on these tolls can add up pretty quickly. Ask us how we know. We avoid toll roads. 

Using our own hot spot for a more secure Internet connection receiving email

Mail security

If you’re going to be really careful, you could buy a cheap Chromebook laptop or tablet specifically to get important email. If you’re doing this, you will also want to be sure that that device is connected to a secure system. In other words, do not use the campground wifi to do anything that you care about. It’s very, very easy for unscrupulous characters to intercept these connections and see everything you’re doing on line. 

You could also set-up an email account specifically to receive these important items. We have one email account that we only use for things like bills, statements and that sort of thing. 

Another way to pull this off is if you’re planning to retire a laptop or tablet. Instead, reformat it to factory original and then only use it for that one email address you’ve set-up to receive these important items. Make sure you keep the software on this device updated to the latest security updates and also never ever not ever use it for social media. 

We actually don’t do this, but instead have multiple user accounts on a specific laptop. One user account is only there to get this type of correspondence. It never is used for any other items such as browsing the web and particularly not for social media. 

Getting your stuff

Companies like Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes and even some grocery stores offer local pick-up of things you order online. While we’re a huge advocate of shopping at locally-owned stores and markets, there are some times when a trip to Walmart is almost inevitable. 

You can order a full cart of groceries on the app and have it waiting for you. But there are also plenty of other things available at Walmart that you can arrange to have waiting for you at a local store. It’s really convenient. 

In fact there are many Walmarts around the country where you can spend the night at no cost. Having your items waiting for you would be icing on the cake although here are some tips for overnighting at Walmart. 

Amazon also offers Amazon lockers in some locations. If you know you’re going to be at a place for any period of time and want to get something from Amazon, the lockers are one way of doing so. 

Setting up our account at America's Mailbox in South Dakota

Mail Forwarding Services

There are a variety of companies around the US that offer mail forwarding. While the prices and policies differ somewhat in detail, they effectively provide the same service. 

What happens is you actually change your mailing address to these company’s address. In most cases their addresses are actual proper street addresses instead of PO Boxes so senders with restrictions will still recognize these addresses. 

The nifty thing about these services is that they collect all your mail and packages and then can forward them to wherever you are. But if you only have letters, they offer the option of securely scanning those correspondence and providing a digital way you can see them. 

This is especially handy for things like bills, roadway tolls and that sort of thing. You get notified that you have mail and you log in and can see if it deserves your attention or not. 

These companies can also forward you any physical mail. If you’re a full-time traveler this is especially great. If you know you’re going to be in a place for a specific amount of time these companies can send all your physical mail via services like FedEx or UPS or the Post Office’s Priority Mail. But, instead, you can just get scans of what’s in the envelopes and deal with them as necessary. 

For the time that we were South Dakota residents we used America’s Mailbox. We have also heard really good things about Escapees RV Club’s mail forwarding service. 

Of course there are a number of companies offering this type of service but our personal experience with America’s Mailbox was outstanding and we have heard nothing but good things about Escapees as well. 

Filling out the paperwork for a change of domicile state

Domicile state option

If you’re gone for longer periods of time or have decided to live full-time in your RV, then you’ll need to consider a domicile state option and then a mail forwarding service. There are several states in the US that cater to full-time RV living and offer some pretty great options for choosing them. 

How do you get your mail while traveling? Let us know how we nailed it or failed it. We will update this article as new information comes to us, though it probably won’t come by mail.