Snowbird car shipping

Snowbird shipping is a seasonal round trip. Your car goes south in the fall, comes home in the spring, and you fly both ways instead of spending two or three days on I-95 or I-75 each direction. What makes it its own service is the calendar: a huge number of households from the same parts of the country want their cars moved in the same few weeks, in the same direction, to the same handful of places. Planning around that rush is most of the job.

The biggest flows we arrange start in the Northeast and the Great Lakes:

• New York, New Jersey and New England to Florida down I-95, to Palm Beach, Broward, Naples and the Gulf Coast. See New York to Florida, New Jersey to Florida and Boston to Florida.
• Michigan, Ohio and Illinois to Florida on I-75 and I-65, heavily to Sarasota, Naples and Tampa Bay. See Michigan to Florida and Chicago to Florida.
• The Midwest to Arizona, especially the Phoenix area and Tucson. See Chicago to Arizona.
• Texas' Rio Grande Valley and California's Coachella Valley, the winter homes of the Winter Texans and the Palm Springs crowd.

A domestic snowbird shipment needs no special paperwork: the car, the keys, and someone to sign at each end.

1. 1

   Book both directions at once

   Give us your fall pickup window and a rough idea of when you'll head home. Locking in the spring leg early is the best way to avoid the April scramble.

2. 2

   Fall: pickup at home

   The driver inspects the car in your driveway, records its condition on the bill of lading, and loads it.

3. 3

   You fly; the car follows

   Most people schedule pickup a few days to a week before their flight, so the car arrives close to when they do.

4. 4

   Delivery to your winter address

   Condo, gated golf community or 55+ neighborhood: we plan the meeting point around your community's rules on commercial trucks.

5. 5

   Spring: the same trip in reverse

   We confirm the northbound window a few weeks out, and the car heads home ahead of you or behind you, whichever you prefer. The return lanes, such as Florida to New York, fill fast after Easter.

Snowbird lanes are seasonal markets, and the price follows the calendar more than anything else. Trucks run full southbound from mid-October through December and northbound from March through May. Outside those windows the same lanes have room to spare.

• Southbound: book four to six weeks before your pickup window, and earlier for November.
• Northbound: book by February for an April return, or in the fall when you book the trip down.
• Transit: once loaded, most Northeast and Great Lakes to Florida runs take 3–6 days. The Midwest to Arizona is usually 4–6.

Our guide to how long car shipping takes explains where the days go, including the federal limits on how far a driver can go in a day.

• Get the car serviced before it ships so it's ready to drive the day it arrives.
• Take photos the morning of pickup, including the odometer.
• Pull your E-ZPass or I-PASS transponder, and sort out SunPass or local tolls at your destination separately.
• Ship the car empty. Golf clubs, beach chairs and winter clothes go in your luggage or a separate shipment.
• Keep the insurance and registration current for the whole season, and note any renewal dates that fall while you're away.
• Leave a spare key at home, and give the driver one set.

We also arrange the trip for Canadian snowbirds from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Their cars cross the border twice a season, so they travel with a document file. A Canadian-registered car enters the US as a nonresident's vehicle for temporary personal use: up to one year without duty, and it can't be sold while it's here. Because the owner isn't crossing with it, the file includes CBP Form 3299, the DOT HS-7 and EPA 3520-1 declarations, a signed authorization for the carrier, a passport copy, the registration and, if the car is financed, a lienholder letter. The car must travel empty.

Each document is explained on our Canada to US car shipping page, and the trip home is covered under US to Canada car shipping. Day counts, US registration for long stays, IRS day counting and provincial health coverage are in our snowbird guide.