How To Get Your Mail While Travelling Overseas

Whether you're travelling for a few weeks or a few years, you might need to get your mail while travelling overseas. Here are all the options you need to know about. 
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My trip to Calgary was part of a press trip.  This post may contain affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase, we may get a small commission.

How to get your mail overseas: Vanessa lines up at a post office Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Everyone loves to travel to get away from it all – only to discover that one of the best things about travelling is sharing it with your friends and loved ones back home. Thankfully, between email, social media, apps, and virtual programs, it’s easy to constantly check in and say hello. But occasionally, getting an actual letter from home would be nice. Or, occasionally, it might be a necessity. Legal and financial documents don’t stop coming, no matter where you are. If you’re contemplating a long-term trip or even shifting to live as a digital nomad, here’s how to get your mail while travelling overseas.

Poste Restante

Sending mail instead of getting it at the Vatican City post office. (PS Don't believe reports that say this post office is faster than those in central Rome. Our postcards took months to arrive!)

Poste Restante is one of the oldest methods of receiving mail when travelling. The name is French for “remaining post.” However, it’s now known as the international term for “general delivery.” When you use Poste Restante, you ask the post office in a foreign city to hold mail for you, a general delivery recipient, at the central post office. 

Post Restante is an excellent system for backpackers and nomadic travellers with no fixed address. (This article has fantastic stories about women travelling in the pre-smartphone era when Poste Restante was a proper lifeline.) If your mom wants to send you a birthday card and you’re reasonably sure you’ll be in Helsinki or Melbourne in a month, she can send it along for just the cost of an international stamp.

To send letters and postcards by Poste Restante, the sender needs to put the following down as the address: 

Your full name
“Poste Restante”
Name of Post Office
City, Country, Postal Code.

A quick Google search is all you need to find the official address of each city’s central post office.

Remember to show up within 14 days or risk forfeiting your mail. Of course, you also need to know when you will be in a particular city far enough in advance to let your friends and family know. You also have to take the time to go to the central post office (which may or may not be centrally located.) And sometimes you’ll have to return more than once if your mail hasn’t arrived yet. Despite these caveats, Poste Restante is an easy, economical way to collect mail from family and friends.

Poste Restante’s Now-Shuttered Private Counterparts

Poste Restante was once so popular that the now-defunct Thomas Cook company offered a private version of it at their international travel offices. American Express called it the “Client Letter” service, holding mail for cardholders at their global travel offices. Sadly, these programs are no more, though you may occasionally hear them referenced in travel stories. However, an alternative sprung up to take their place: Private virtual mail services.

Using Virtual Mail Services

While nothing can compete with the joy of opening an actual letter from a loved one, the truth is that most people don’t need to physically have their mail. They just need to know what it says. This is where virtual mail services come into play. 

A virtual mail service provides a physical address for a monthly fee. All bills, mortgage statements, credit card papers, and, yes, even birthday cards can be sent to this address in your home country. If you want, the staff will open your mail, scan it, and send it to you electronically. You can then instruct them to shred the documents or save them for return. You can even have them forward things by courier. Is it the same as holding a note from your mom? Not even close. But it’s a brilliant solution if you need a secure address to send legal and financial documents.

As part of your sign-up package, you’ll authorise your virtual mail service provider to open your mail. There’s even a form for it, USPS Form 1583. Authorising mail openings is a serious business, and this form requires notarization—something else you can do virtually.

What To Look For In A Virtual Mail Service

The virtual mail service is booming. Travellers have more choices than ever before, and it’s essential to look beyond the monthly price point to see what you’re really getting. For instance, does your virtual mail service provider offer a PO Box address or a street address? A street address is essential if you receive packages or registered documents. 

You’ll want to ask about their online portal. Is it mobile-responsive? Do they have an app? If they’re integrated with popular programs like Evernote or Dropbox, that’s even better. Can they still do old-school tasks, like depositing cheques into a bank account or sending faxes?

Don’t hesitate to ask them how they choose their staff. Privacy and comfort matter; you must feel at ease knowing someone else is reading your mail. 

How To Choose A Location

Price points and services aren’t the only considerations when choosing a virtual mail service. If you’re a long-term traveller or digital nomad, you still need a physical address in the United States to call home for residency purposes. For instance, you need a place to receive voter registration cards and tax files. If the address of your virtual mail service is going to be YOUR address, for all intents and purposes, choosing a state with low tax rates or robust social services may play into your final decision. 
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Alternatively, if you want to feel fancy, virtual mail services set up shop to provide their clients with an impressive mailing address. If you ever want a business address on Wall Street, a virtual mail service can make it happen.

Possible Options: Amazon Lockers and DHL’s Packstation

Of course, not all mail is suitable for scanning and reviewing online. Sometimes, it’s big, bulky, and urgent. For instance, if you need a replacement part for your tent, you’ll no doubt be pining for the ease of instant shipping with a service like Amazon.

The Amazon Locker program and its competitor from DHL, Packstation, work like a community mailbox program. However, instead of going to a post office or apartment lobby with your key, you’ll go to a central location like a grocery store, a convenience store, or even a library and retrieve your package from a storage locker using a digital code.  

Plus, these programs are the perfect solution to tricky shipping problems. Even if you have a fixed address, there’s no guarantee you’ll be home when a package arrives, which means a complicated process of figuring out how to collect it. Depending on your living situation, this may also be a more private and secure alternative to home delivery. On the downside, it’s not universal and only available in select countries. First, you need to be near a Locker or Packstation location. But it might work for some travellers, and it’s well worth keeping an eye on.

The Solution Everyone Forgets: Reducing Your Mail

The easiest way to deal with mail delivery is to avoid needing it in the first place. Nearly all bills, bank statements, and insurance papers can be sent electronically or viewed via log-in sites. Even birthday cards can be designed and sent electronically, as can e-gifts like Amazon gift cards, Starbucks gift cards, or vouchers for travel experiences. After using virtual services for a year or so, you can reduce your mail so you no longer have to worry about it.

Planning your next big trip? These articles will help.

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