Luggage advice
 

Does anyone know of a fairly inexpensive way to ship a large suitcase to Europe from the US? My daughter is living in Spain and came home to US for a few months. We are all going on a trip to Europe as she heads back to Spain but she doesn't want to trek her large suitcase on the trip with us before she heads to her home. We'd love to just ship it to her place in Spain. Does anyone know of a good way to do that?

Buy a suitcase in Spain.

Any of the package delivery services will do this UPS, DHL... but I don't know the price.

Is it empty or full? I would buy a new one in Spain or just ship her clothing home in a big box. We just use the post office when we do that. My husband would have to take a lot of gear for duty and hated bringing it home so would ship it. He would take it because he had to have for work but the extra uniforms and coats he would ship back home at the end of duty.

There's no really inexpensive way to do this. I used to ship things back and forth to Europe by post, using the ground shipping rate (which was really by sea). The packages took anywhere from a month to three months to arrive, and took an awful beating en route. This no longer seems to be possible, though.

You should forget shipping the suitcase itself, which weighs a lot and would probably need to be put in a box, which could very well be larger than the limits for normal shipping. Remove the contents, perhaps deciding that a lot of stuff could either be left behind, replaced in Spain, or carried on your trip in a smaller suitcase. Then pack the essentials that can't be carried in a cardboard box. Your daughter can buy a new suitcase in Spain for less than it would cost to ship the one she has.

The US Postal service is probably the cheapest way to ship the box; they have a priority mail international for packages, which will usually arrive within two weeks or so. Make sure you check the maximum dimensions of the box.

I always put a heavy duty trash bag inside the box I'm shipping and put my stuff in the bag, along with the address on a piece of paper, and tie the bag closed tightly. I reinforce the edges of the box with heavy duty shipping tape. (This may be an excess of caution due to what happened to boxes I shipped by sea.)

The US Postal Service also has a cheaper way of shipping books and other printed material (except letters and other personal correspondence) overseas, but it's only suitable for fairly large amounts, as they charge you for the minimum of 5 kg (11 pounds) if the package weighs less than that. This takes longer than the international priority. You put all the books in a sack called an M-bag. You should wrap them separately so they don't get damaged in transit. The weight is for the total including the sack.

How long will the post office keep the bag/box? Or will there be someone to pick it up for her?

You should probably compare prices between 1: shipping the bag from the US and 2: shipping within Europe plus the cost of bringing an extra bag on the plane to Europe.