How to get mail when you travel – Traveling Mailbox Review

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As we embarked on long term nomadic travel and thought about giving notice to our apartment in San Francisco, we had to figure out a few things. One was what to do with the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years and decided to become aspiring minimalists. The other was what to do with all the physical mail we received pretty much every day.

This post is part of our “behind the scenes” series where we share how we run our lives since we started our nomadic life.

For the first post of this series, we will discuss the solution we chose to handle our physical mail, how it works, how much does it cost and why you might want to consider it as well – whether you are traveling or not – especially if you never want to receive junk mail again!

Some links to the products below are affiliate links, meaning that if you click and purchase any of them, Nomad Numbers may a commission at no additional cost to you. For more information please review our disclaimer page.

Why receiving physical mail can affect your quality of life

With the internet and electronic mail, some might think that we would have figured out a way to eradicate physical mail. Unfortunately we are not there yet and this might not be a good thing.

According to Ecocycle.org “junk [physical] mail comes at a huge cost to our quality of life [and] you could spend up to eight months of your life dealing with junk mail. [Junk mail can also] endanger our privacy by sharing your name, address and purchasing habits with marketers around the country. Junk mail fills your mailbox with offers that most of us don’t need and it can put your identity at risk if in the wrong hands”.

In summary, checking physical mail is time consuming and a significant number of millennials seem still hooked to it. Personally, I  would rather trade eight months of my life to add more places to the ones we already visited rather than spending time at home picking up, sorting and processing through all of this clutter. What about you?

This is why, for the past six months, we’ve been using Traveling Mailbox to handle all of our physical mail and never have to receive junk mail again!

What is Traveling Mailbox?

Traveling Mailbox is an online postal mailbox that started in 2011. They scan all of the non-junk mail and make it available for viewing 24/7. Your email is archived forever and you can manage it anywhere in the world, 24/7, 365 days a year!

Is Traveling Mailbox safe?

Instead of your mail being delivered and left in your mailbox until you get back home to pick it up, with Traveling Mailbox, your mail arrives in a secure facility that is monitored 24/7 and is immediately being taken care of.

Ok but isn’t it actually more dangerous to let a third party to handle your physical mail? Traveling Mailbox says that their top priority is privacy and security of their customers. Employees that scan your mail are given background checks and the company states that they only “employ high quality team members for mail handling and scanning”. They are also a Certified Commercial Mail Receiving Agency with the United States Postal Service.

You also have total control over your mail. When your mail arrives to your Traveling Mailbox address, only the outside of the envelope is scanned, so you can see what you received, like in real life. You then decide which email you want Traveling Mailbox to open, which one you want them to destroy and which ones you want to have forwarded to you, anywhere in the world.

What does the user experience look like?

Here is what my current home page of Traveling Mailbox looks like:

The right side of the page is your current inbox. It contains each piece of mail you’ve received. For each piece of mail you can take the following actions:

• Open & Scan: to open and scan every document inside your envelope.
• Quick Scan: to open and scan your mail within 10 minutes (for a fee).
• Open, Scan & Shred: to open and scan your mail and immediately shred the physical copy right after.
• Move to Folder: to let you organize your mail
• Check Deposit: the company will deposit any check you might receive to your bank (for a fee). I usually do the deposit myself, by taking a picture of the check using my phone and I haven’t run into any issues to date.
• Forward: to forward your physical mail anywhere in the world (for a fee).
• Shred: to delete the physical copy. This is done in a secure fashion.
• Shred & Delete: to delete both the digital and physical copy of your mail.

It is worth to noting that Traveling Mailbox will keep the physical copy of your mail for about a month, unless you decide to shred it. After that you will get a notification that the physical copy of your mail will get securely destroyed. You can request Traveling Mailbox to hold a piece of mail for you for a fee, or simply have it forwarded to you.

The left side of the page lets you organize your mail using folders. I like to organize my mail by senders, so this is the structure I’ve created. You can also create a folder hierarchy if you have high organization needs.

Other cool features

Traveling Mailbox provides many more features. Here are the ones I personally love and make it worth my monthly membership fee.

provides many more features. Here are the ones I personally love and make it worth my monthly membership fee.

• Mobile App – While I shared with you a screenshot of their desktop app, I manage our mail mostly through their phone app (they have support for both iPhone and Android). As soon as mail is ready for us to review, we get a notification on the phone, wherever we are! Their app is basic but checking email should not require a ton of bell and whistles.
• Integrations – Traveling Mailbox integrates with services like Box, Evernote, Dropbox and more for free. I have my account integrated with Box so I get a free backup of my email and I can also trigger workflow every-time I receive a new scan into my Box account.
• Parcel Forwarding – Traveling Mailbox will forward your parcel for a fee. I haven’t used this yet as we are aspiring minimalists and don’t buy a lot of stuff but this can be great if you are outside of the country and the company you are shopping with only delivers within the US.
• Bulk Scanning – You can send all your physical mail(and documents) to your Traveling Mailbox address and they will scan it for you. This is a fantastic feature if you want to fully transition from paper mail to digital mail as I did.
• Reporting – Traveling Mailbox provides an at-a-glance view of how much incoming mail you are getting as well as how many scans you are requesting each month.

How much does it cost?

If you factor in the time we spent to sort/shred our physical mail, this membership fee is not that expensive. We use their Basic Plan which is enough for the amount of physical mail they process for us. This plan should fit for most couples, especially if you have already opted-in to receive most of your communication electronically.

I’ve added below the comparison of their 3 most popular plans, as of December 2018. (For the latest pricing, please refer check out the pricing page on the Traveling Mailbox site).

Basic Plan $15 / month	Extended Plan $25 / month	Small Business Plan $55 / month
40 Incoming Envelopes / mo 35 Page Scans / mo 3 Mailbox Recipients	100 Incoming Envelopes / mo 80 Page Scans / mo 5 Mailbox Recipients	200 Incoming Envelopes / mo 180 Page Scans / mo 10 Mailbox Recipients

How is the customer support?

Top notch & responsive! I had to reach the Traveling Mailbox support team a few times and I found their chat platform and team very responsive. I never had to wait more than a couple minutes to get a representative and they are very knowledgeable. It feels great to know that I will likely get an answer to most of my requests within 5 minutes and at pretty much any time of the day since their support is 24/7!

I do not travel for an extended period of time. Should I care?

Here are a few reasons you might want to consider such service:

• Never have to deal with physical junk mail ever.
• Having them manage any physical mail delivered to your business.
• Integration that lets you automate your physical mail delivery (like check deposits for instance)

We have been using their service for 6 months and I’m pretty confident we will keep using them if/when we get back to the US. Being able to handle physical mail online, not having to worry about people taking away your mail when you take a short vacation or an extended trip around the world is worth their affordable monthly fee.

How do I get started?

If you are interested to get started, I’ve put together a step by step guide that is going through the basic workflow of the subscription process:

• Subscribe to a Traveling Mailbox.
• Complete the USPS 1583 Form.
• Notify your senders about your addresses.
• Sit back and relax, never having to receive physical mail ever.

Ready? Let’s go!

Step #1 – Go to Traveling Mailbox & click the “Signup!” button

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Step #2: Select the plan that best fits your need.

Pro-tip A: You can upgrade anytime so we recommend that you start with their cheapest plan (Basic Plan) and upgrade as needed. Traveling Mailbox will send you a notification once you get close to your scan limit and let you upgrade/downgrade as you wish.

Step #3: Select your billing cycle, plan type and mailbox location

Pro-tip B: If you select their annual subscription you will get 2 months free (which is what we did)

Pro-tip C: Their Sanford address (located in North Carolina) is their default location for your new mailing address. If you need your mailing address to be in another state, they offer alternative locations but keep in mind that all the ones labeled as “Premium Address”come at an extra cost.

Step #4: Provide your personal & payment information and submit your order.

Step #5: Receive email confirmation that your order has been successfully processed and setup your online account.

Step #6: Submit your form USPS 1583 through the Traveling Mailbox website.

Step #7: Wait for Traveling Mailbox to let you know that your USPS 1583 has been reviewed and approved. (This took about one business day for me.)

Step #8: Upload the notarized version of your USPS 1583 and receive a confirmation that your mailbox is active and ready to process physical mail.

Step #9: Congratulations, you are (almost) done! You can start notifying your friends, family and the various services providers you are using about your new mailing address so they can start sending you mail there. Also if you plan on traveling long term, you can ask USPS to forward your mail directly to this address. This usually works only for a year, which should give you plenty of time to assess the service and decide whether or not you want to make Traveling Mailbox your new and definitive mailing address so you don’t have to handle junk mail again!

Conclusion

For digital nomads, long term travelers and anyone on the road for an extended period of time, an online mail solution take care of your physical mail for you and make sure any important piece of mail can be processed in a timely fashion while you are away. Traveling Mailbox is a great option because it is incredibly easy to use, secure, affordable, can integrate with other online services and come with a top notch customer service.

I will most likely keep my subscription if/when we return to the US so I won’t have to deal with physical junk mail again.

What about you? What do you think about managing your physical mail online? Would you do it? Please let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

(Note: links to Traveling Mailbox are affiliate links, which means that if you sign-up, we will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products or services that we like and use, and by using our affiliate links you help us pay for the cost to run this site. If you use and love another solution, please share in the comments.)

FAQ

Q: Can you use Traveling Mailbox as your new proof of residence? No. A: Traveling Mailbox can only be used as a “mailing address”. Most service provider will allow you to keep your physical address on file while you provide a “mailing address” that they will use to send you any mail. You can’t use this as a proof of residence.

Q: What is the difference between a Physical and a Mailing address?
A: A mailing address (or postal address) is used to deliver mail, while a Physical address (or street address) is used to determine where your current residency is.

Q: Why do I have to complete the USPS Form 1583?
A: Traveling Mailbox is a Certified Commercial Mail Receiving Agency with the United States Postal Service. With this certification, they are allowed to accept mail from the Postal Service for others. As a result, all subscribers to a Traveling Mailbox must complete the USPS Form 1583. They cannot process your mail until they have received this completed form and have it notarized.

Q: Who the heck still sends physical mail? 
A: Besides businesses than love to send junk mail, some banks, brokerage account and even the IRS still does not offer a 100% paperless option. And USPS might like this to continue.

Q: I still have more questions about Traveling Mailbox.
A: Feel free to leave a comment on this post and I’ll be happy to help answer any questions you might have. They also have top-notch support (& FAQ page) that you can check out.