I used to think keeping track of packages while traveling was impossible.
Then I spent three months moving between cities for work, ordering everything from replacement chargers to birthday gifts for people back home, and I realized something: the infrastructure for mobile package management has gotten surprisingly sophisticated in the past few years—though nobody really talks about it in a coherent way. Amazon has these lockers now, scattered across gas stations and grocery stores, looking like oversized vending machines. UPS has Access Points in CVS locations. FedEx partners with Walgreens. The whole system feels like it evolved without anyone writing a manual for how normal people should actually use it. I’ve seen travelers miss packages worth hundreds of dollars because they didn’t know you could reroute a shipment mid-transit, which—honestly—seems like information that should be more obvious.
Here’s the thing: you can’t just use your hotel address and hope for the best. Hotels have wildly different policies about accepting packages, and some will outright refuse anything that isn’t sent through their approved courier service. I learned this the hard way in Portland when a hotel desk clerk looked at my Amazon box like I’d asked her to babysit a live chicken.
Setting Up Amazon Locker and Hub Locations Before You Even Leave Home
The smartest move is finding Amazon Locker or Hub locations along your route before you order anything. Amazon’s website has a map feature—buried under “Find a Locker” in your account settings—that shows every pickup point in a given area. These lockers hold packages for three days, sometimes five if you’re lucky, which gives you a decent window to recieve your stuff even if your plans shift. I usually screenshot the addresses and save them in my phone’s notes app because the Amazon app’s location finder is, let’s say, not always reliable when you’re in an unfamiliar city without great cell service.
What surprised me most was how many regular retail stores now function as quasi-post-offices. Whole Foods locations often have Amazon counters. Some 7-Elevens are pickup points. Rite Aid stores in certain regions partner with FedEx.
The Underrated Power of General Delivery at US Post Offices
Wait—maybe this sounds old-fashioned, but General Delivery is still a thing, and it’s absurdly useful for people who move around frequently. You address a package to yourself at any post office using their street address, add “General Delivery” as the second line, and they’ll hold it for up to 30 days. It’s free. The catch is you need to show ID when you pick it up, and not every postal worker seems thrilled about the extra paperwork, but I’ve used this method in rural areas where Amazon Lockers don’t exist and it’s worked every single time. You do have to call ahead to confirm the specific post office accepts General Delivery—some branches in major cities have stopped offering it because of volume issues—but for small-town post offices, it’s often the most reliable option, assuming you can get there during their limited hours.
I guess it’s worth mentioning that timing matters more than people realize.
Rerouting Packages Mid-Transit Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money
Most carriers let you reroute packages after they’ve shipped, though the process varies wildly. UPS My Choice is free to sign up and lets you redirect deliveries to nearby UPS stores or Access Points, usually for around $5-7 per package. FedEx Delivery Manager offers similar features, though in my experience their notification system is less consistent—I’ve had packages rerouted without recieving confirmation emails, which creates a special kind of anxiety when you’re tracking a $200 order. USPS Informed Delivery is underrated: it emails you scans of incoming mail and lets you request package holds or forwards, though the interface looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2009 and occasionally just… doesn’t work for reasons nobody can explain.
When You’re Staying With Friends or Using Coworking Spaces as Pseudo-Addresses
Shipping to a friend’s house seems obvious, but you need to communicate clearly about timing—I’ve definately strained friendships by having packages arrive during someone’s vacation, leaving boxes piled on their porch for days. Coworking spaces are hit-or-miss; WeWork locations generally accept packages for members, but smaller independent spaces often have policies against it unless you rent a dedicated desk. Some coworking spaces charge package-handling fees, which feels petty but makes sense when you consider they’re not actually in the mail-receiving business. The trick is asking the space manager directly rather than assuming it’s allowed, because the official policy and the actual practice are sometimes two different things.
Anyway, the whole system works better when you plan ahead, but it also works okay when you don’t—which I think says something about how adaptable logistics networks have become, even if using them still feels needlessly complicated most of the time.
