Shipping Without an Address

I got a call today from a guy who is flying in from the UK to explore some of our national parks and wanted to get some food shipped to him…but had no idea how that would work. Would he have to get the food shipped to the UK and then have to bring it back to the US or was there some other way to get it to him?

We learned about a service provided by the US Post Office a little while ago that we use to resupply the Packit Gourmet VW Bus and to ship to hikers on the Appalachian Trail and it would work in this situation too. It turns out, that the US Post Office will hold general delivery packages for up to 30 days at no charge. Here’s how you do it:

Find a post office in the town that you’ll be visiting by clicking here.

Then address your package as:

YOUR NAME
ATTN: Hold for recipient ETA DATE
General Delivery
CITY, ZIP CODE

You must send your packages via USPS (FedEx, UPS, etc. will not be accepted by the post office), which works out well because they have some very reasonable flat rate shipping boxes that you can stuff with items weighing up to 70 pounds. Then just go to the post office and pick-up your package once you arrive.

One thing to be aware of – the post office generally closes between 5pm – 7pm on the weekdays, 2pm – 5pm on Saturday and is not open on Sunday.