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Sending to Ivar from Portugal.

gloria lowe

Arizona is my home
Time of past OR future Camino
2014, 17, 18, 19, 21
Is it possible to send a box to Ivar from Lisbon to pickup on arrival in Santiago? Does it involve going thru customs and is it likely to get there? Don’t know how to search in the forum and in fact not even sure if posting correctly.
Thanks
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
When I sent a box to Ivar from Porto I used the post office in the city. I was able to pick up a box after taking my ticket and start packing my things while waiting for my counter number to come up. The person at the counter was so helpful an Ivar delivered the box to the place I was going to stay in SdC.
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
In case @t2andreo doesn't see this thread read what he wrote about this topic last year:

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/lost-parcel.48420/#post-520958

This post was great and sadly hilarious to me. This is probably not here nor there, but when I was visiting Porto last Spring I was shocked by the cost to mail things back to the US. I understand it's different within Portugal or to Santiago, but from PT to the US was insane! It was easily 3x the cost from Spain, and 5x the cost from the NL. I paid dearly for the lovely things I bought myself, and that amazing jar of honey I got smashed in transit and coated everything with sticky glass! Oops! :D
 
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I am seeing the thread and advising against sending anything from Portugal to Spain, or from France into Spain, through the national post office systems. The reason is simple. Despite the harmonization effects of the European Union, each country continues to maintain a national mail system that treats these intra-EU shipments as international shipments. So, instead of a point-to-point parcel delivery system like FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc., you have to deal with a veritable pipe organ...

This means, for example, that a parcel mailed from anywhere in Portugal will go to Lisbon first, then into their export scheme, then to Madrid, where the Spanish Correos will process this as an import item, despite the fact that there are no actual customs controls. It is just how the process is organized. From Madrid, the imported item goes into the Spanish distribution network.

This adds time, distance and complexity to your shipment. It also adds an element of uncertainty. In my case, a box mailed from Porto, travelling some 250 km to Santiago (figured direct), instead went to Lisbon, Madrid, Sevilla, and thence eventually on to Santiago... What should have taken 2-3 days maximum, took some 10 days.

The CTT (Portugal), El Correos (Spain) and La Post (France) all have apps that allow you to track your shipment using your smartphone. They all work great. In my experience from PT to ES, I watched in the apps as my parcel mailed to Ivar, went "higgly-piggily" all over Portugal and Spain. It eventually showed up at Ivar's some three days AFTER I flew home to the US, I retrieved my stuff on my next trip there.

If you are starting in Lisbon and planning to be on Camino for three to four weeks, this should be plenty of time for a parcel to get to Ivar, even considering my experience. So, from Lisbon, you should be okay. However, once you are on the way north, reconsider using the CTT, in favor of checking out UPS, DHL, or another parcel delivery service that operated outside the national postal systems.

Hope this helps.
 
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Is it possible to send a box to Ivar from Lisbon to pickup on arrival in Santiago? Does it involve going thru customs and is it likely to get there? Don’t know how to search in the forum and in fact not even sure if posting correctly.
Thanks

Not only possible... worked for me CP 2019
 
Can you recall roughly what the cost was? I’m thinking about shipping about 10 lbs. from Porto to SdC (sorry, not sure what that is in kg). I recall the cost to ship from SJPdP to SdC being quite painful. I believe I paid in the neighborhood of $60 to ship about 8 lbs., which was more expensive than my flight from Paris to Bayonne.
 
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From memory - the cost Lisbon to SdC was under 20 Euros, including purchase of the cardboard box and sealing.

I took my package of clothes to the Post Office and found a suitable sized box, packed and addressed it there and handed it over to the PO official who sealed it and helped me fill in the customs declaration.

The package was duly delivered to Ivar's and I was so advised by email; it was duly waiting for me at Ivar's when i arrived in SdC 35 days later.

Where it had gone in the intervening period was of no concern to me... Given the nature of the (declared) contents and the declared value (minuscule) , I doubted that it would attract customs' attention, travelling between EU countries...
 

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