Mother’s Day has always been a favorite holiday of mine. But this year’s celebration was even more special because it was the day that I arrived in Florence, Italy to meet up with my daughter. Sarah had spent a year studying abroad in this beautiful city, and, while it was nice that we could continually WhatsApp, email, and FaceTime, those forms of virtual communication just couldn’t replace a plain old hug.

The plan was to bum around Italy, pack up all of her accumulated belongings, and then travel on to Stockholm for a few days before we traveled back to Albany, NY.

The Upside: I’d be sharing wonderful experiences with my kid who had really become a terrific traveler.

The Downside: We would have to schlep by plane to Stockholm, on to JFK and then aboard the train to Albany, NY, all with two additional 50 pound pieces of luggage that contained Sarah’s cherished stuff.

Oy! Not only would this be a real backbreaker, but, like the rest of us, I had heard of all the horror stories concerning luggage lost or damaged by the airlines.

Yes, the thought of mailing some things back had occurred to me. But that was until I saw how expensive this would become. A relatively small box would cost 90 Euros! Plus I had read about more than a few concerns concerning those packages actually arriving home in one piece.

So I was happy to discover that Luggage Forward could pick up these heavy pieces of luggage right from Sarah’s centuries old apartment building and deliver them straight to our door step about a week later. For over ten years, this company has shipped to over 200 countries  and territories including cruise ships. I contacted Anna Bedney who invited us to try this out, and she was wonderful to lead us through the whole process.

The steps were pretty straight forward including filling out forms that provided your travel info and what you’re transporting. Ideally the custom forms needed to be filled out by us about a week before departure.

Ms. Bedney also gave us some pointers on what “not” to pack, and she suggested steering clear of food items, medications of any sort as well as high value metals and electronics. She also noted that we might simply not know what is prohibited country to country and that the company was there to advise us.

Note: Sarah’s apartment made this process a little more difficult. Had we been staying at a more protective environment like say a hotel, we could have simply left the luggage for pick-up. However, Sarah had lived in an apartment building near the busy center of the city. Therefore, leaving the pieces outside could have ensured that they disappeared minutes after they were placed in front. As a result, we needed to stick around.

The pickup time frame was usually two hours,  but we were contacted the day before that the window needed to be increased to three hours. It was explained that a DHL representative would be picking them up and, because Florence was considered to be “rural” , they might need to take more time navigating around the busy cobble stoned streets. About an hour into the time frame, though, we heard Sarah’s door bell ring. Probably for security reasons, the uniformed DHL representative could not enter her apartment. So we brought the luggage down and away they went!

The two pieces of luggage arrived seven days later, with Sarah’s belongings safe and sound.

Thanks Luggage Forward! Click HERE for more info.