How to Get Mail while RVing

One of the most frequent questions we hear when we tell people we live in an RV is:

How do you get mail?

It’s a good question – most people are used to being in one address longer than a week, and can have cards, bills, packages, and gifts all sent to their home address. When your home has wheels, it’s not as straightforward. However, it actually can be very simple to continue receiving mail once you decide to live a more nomadic lifestyle.

Domicile

One note before we jump into how to get your mail while on the road: we did not use a service to change our domicile. Domicile has an important legal definition that affects everything from voter and vehicle registration, to taxes, jury duty, and insurance. It can get very confusing, and that’s even after studying it in law school!

Domicile is based around a person’s intent, and is generally defined as the state that you consider your home or permanent place of residence. It’s where you intend to stay, even if you aren’t currently there. Legally, you can have multiple residences, but you can only have one domicile.

For our domicile, we were able to use my (Kriste’s) parents address in New Hampshire. That is where we own property and eventually plan to return to after traveling. We were able to change our domicile, register to vote, etc., all by submitting signed letters to city hall. Using a family member’s address for your domicile while you travel is a simple option, but you’ll want to check with an attorney in your area or call your local town office, as the local rules will vary.

You have to have a domicile, for many of the reasons above like determining where your vehicle will be registered, where you can vote, and for tax purposes. Because we did not change the state of our domicile, we don’t have any recommendations for services that help you do so. However, quickly we can say that there are services and states that work with people who are living in an RV, in particular Texas, Florida, and South Dakota. Be sure to look into what state and services will work best for your needs before changing your domicile.

Mail Forwarding

There are a number of services and options out there if you need to receive mail while moving around, and we did quite a bit of research before settling on the one that works best for our situation. Below we list a number of options that may work well for you if you decide to hit the road.

1. Friends & Family

One option is to have a friend or family receive all your mail and then gather it and forward it on in a package. This could work well if you don’t plan on full-timing, and are instead traveling for only a few months or seasonally.

However, if you’re going full-time, this could be tricky, as you friend or family member has to re-package your mail and then pay the postage to send it to you on a regular basis. Depending on how much mail you plan to receive, this could be an economical option. However, this likely won’t work if you’re also running a business from the road.

2. USPS Mail Forwarding

When we decided to rent out our condo and live full-time in an RV, we had the same questions about how we’ll continue to get mail while traveling. One of the first things we did as we moved out was to notify the post office of our change of address. The Post Office will forward your mail for up to a year to a new address that you provide. This could be a friend or family if you’re only traveling for a short period, or it can be to the address you set up with a mail forwarding service.

We had already set up our mail forwarding service, and so had a new permanent address to forward our mail to, so our tenant wouldn’t keep getting it. To change your address with the USPS, you can go to your local branch, or it is easy to make the change online (we had to do it twice, once as individuals and then once for our business).

The process is easy, and you just have to follow the directions to Change Your Address. The direct link to change your address is with the Official USPS Change of Address Form. You will need to sign in and and pay $1.05 to confirm that you are a real person and officially requesting to change your address. The screenshots below show the form you’ll need to fill out.

*Note: in Step 3 to verify your identity, your billing address submitted must match the billing address of your credit card (in case you’ve already updated your credit card billing address to your new address).

Once set up, you will begin receiving mail at the new address provided. The USPS will also notify you soon before the service is up by email if you turned on notifications during this process.

3. Traveling Mailbox

Forwarding your mail to a new address requires already having a new address. That can be challenging if your residence moves every week with you. We’re also working from the road, and so we knew we would be receiving mail for the business on a regular basis, including checks. We therefore went with a mail forwarding service that may be a little bit more expensive than some of the other options available, but we’ve been very happy with this option.

Traveling Mailbox is an online postal mailbox. They do not offer the residency services that some other businesses listed below do, and so you cannot use them to establish domicile. However, they are extremely professional and easy to use for receiving mail and packages.

When you sign up, you authorize them to receive your mail with the USPS. Then you are issued a personalized mail address, and all of your mail gets sent to one of their centers. We selected North Carolina, but they also offer other addresses in many other states for an additional fee. At the centers, they will scan the outside of the envelope or package and send you an email and add it to your online account. You can decide if you’d like them to shred it, to open it and send you a scan of the inside, or to hold it. For packages, there is an additional fee to receive at the center. Once you know where you’ll be for a while (and check with your campground that you can receive packages), all of the mail on hold will be packaged together and sent to you (although you do have to pay the postage). You’ll receive a login and storage to keep and file your mail, and to easily decide what to toss, hold and forward.

They have three different pricing options:

We went for the middle option, the Extended Plan, which is $25 a month and paid for the year to receive two months free. This plan allows us 100 incoming envelopes per month, and 80 page scans per month, with unused scans rolling over. If we didn’t have the business mail sent to this address, we’d probably opt for the basic plan, but this gives us more than we need and the assurance that we won’t miss anything. They also offer a service for depositing checks, but we opt to have them sent to us and deposit ourselves via mobile banking. The great thing is you can use their service anywhere, and they have an app and easy to use online software to manage your account and mail.

We have been really happy with them, and definitely recommend Traveling Mailbox as a forwarding service.

4. Other Forwarding Services

When we were researching what mail forwarding service to use, we came across a number of different options. We haven’t used any of the services below, but wanted to share in case you’re looking to compare as well. A number of these offer both forwarding and residency, and so may be a good option if you need to establish domicile in addition to a mailing address.

Escapees RV Club

We’re actually members of Escapees, and came close to selecting their mail service. You have to be a member to sign up for their mail forwarding program. You’ll get a personal address in Texas, and they can also scan and email your mail, if you opt for their Category B or C plans. In the basic Category A tier, you don’t have scanning or the option to pick what is forwarded to you. They require an initial setup fee, as well as a postage deposit.

You can learn more about Escapees Mail Forwarding Service here.

My RV Mail

My RV Mail is another mail forwarding service that also gives you the option of establishing residency in Florida. They have two types of plans, Basic and Premium. You’ll have to opt for premium if you want mail scanned.

You can learn more about MyRVmail.com | Mail Forwarding here.

There are many other services out there, and it’s worth taking a look to find what is the best fit for your traveling lifestyle.

Receiving Packages

It’s not just traditional mail that you have to think about when full-timing, but also where and how to receive packages. Like mail forwarding services, there are a number of options for receiving packages while on the road.

Of course, friends and family are again an option, but the logistics of shipping a package twice may make this a cumbersome option.

Thank goodness for Amazon Prime. We’ve had an Amazon Prime account for over a decade, but it’s really proved its worth since we started full-time RVing. Knowing that a package is guaranteed to arrive in two days is a necessity when you’re planning on moving to a new campground every week or two. We’ve used Prim

e to have all sorts of things sent to us while living on the road, from RV gear and decor, to kitty food and some groceries. It does mean that you have to be diligent in updating the shipping address every time you order (our list of past shipping addresses is LONG in our account).

When you have a package of any sort shipped to your campground, make sure you include the following:

YOUR NAME Site #XX
C/O Name of Campground
Address
City, ST Zip

There are some campgrounds that won’t receive packages, so always be sure to check before having something shipped. You can always call ahead to your next campground if you need to have something shipped ahead of your arrival.

A few other options include shipping to a UPS store, or to a USPS using General Delivery. With General Delivery, the post office location will hold a package up to 30 days. For the shipping address make sure it reads:

YOUR NAME
General Delivery
Adress
City, ST Zip

How We Deal with Bills

Bills are everyone’s least favorite type of mail. We’ve gone electronic as much as possible to avoid getting unnecessary mail to our mail forwarding box. However, make sure you update your address to your new forwarding address for things like credit cards and bills. Remember you’ll need to use this address for any online orders with your credit cards. We also try to setup as many bills as possible to automatic payments. There are a lot of logistics to living in the RV, and this will help you simplify. Although, the number of bills you’ll have on the road will be less, like no cable or utility bills!

Getting mail on the road shouldn’t hold you back from making the jump to the nomadic lifestyle — there are tons of options! We hope this helped make the transition a bit easier, but leave us a comment or let us know if you have any questions about what we’re doing for mail. Happy travels!