Mail delivery and receipt is of ongoing concern to most Americans, at least those of us who pay bills and taxes.
Thus, one of the dilemmas of full-time RV travel: how to handle the daily influx of paper documents demanding our money?
Those of us who forego a fixed brick-and-mortar address entirely (and truly live full-time aboard the RV) encounter a certain set of issues. The upshot is that you’ve gotta pick a fixed address SOMEWHERE. Many full-time RV travelers obtain a P.O. Box in South Dakota (to take advantage of that state’s relatively generous laws regarding residency, taxes, and so forth).
Those of us who maintain our brick-and-mortar address while traveling face different issues. After a lengthy camping sojourn, we risk returning home to a mountain of envelopes. While we’re chasing moose in Montana, all of that mail is piling up back home.
A helpful YouTube comment (thanks MarthaNYC!) alerted me to the UPS option. Just about every substantial town in America (give or take a few towns) has a UPS Store. These are privately run franchises that are affiliated with a pretty fantastic shipping company: United Parcel Service. You can tackle all sorts of tasks at a UPS store, from shipping to general office jobs like copying and faxing. But what’s of special interest to RV travelers is the ability to RECEIVE mail. Yes, you can rent your own mailbox at your local UPS Store.
There are several benefits to choosing a mailbox at UPS vis-a-vis a post office. These are discussed in the video.
Some others are detailed in the following brochure. I scanned this image for you to peruse.
Click the image to see the full brochure detailing benefits of UPS Store mailboxes, courtesy of The UPS Store.
What I like best is the personal service aspect. With a UPS Store, I would proceed with a feeling of confidence that phone calls would be answered by actual human beings who would care about my satisfaction. That’s worth a lot.