Best way to mail package to Panama?

[lilles]

My kid's school collected school supplies to send to a school in Panama. What is the best/least expensive way to mail a box to Panama? Which carrier?

[rupertpenny]

In my experience (which isn't with Panama) usps is usually cheapest. It still isn't cheap though, and it is much slower than UPS/DHS/FedEx

[MauMau]

Sometimes USPS flat rate is the best route to go. The boxes are free and the price can be cheaper than just using your own box if the stuff your mailing is heavy. Flat rate is a set price but allows for a high weight threshold.

I usually ship with flat rate bubble mailers. But that's just because I'm not shipping a huge amount at once. It's for personal use. For something like this I wouldn't know how to go about it. Are you the one in charge? Because I would happy to stay in touch and give you pointers.

Notebooks I would maybe do in flat rate boxes. And lighter things in a traditional box with postage. The USPS website is very easy to navigate. You can set the destination and the weight of the package to get an estimate cost of shipping. When your ready to ship you can print all the postage at home.

[lilles]

Oct 6, 2015 20:13:13 GMT -5 MauMau said:

Sometimes USPS flat rate is the best route to go. The boxes are free and the price can be cheaper than just using your own box if the stuff your mailing is heavy. Flat rate is a set price but allows for a high weight threshold.

I usually ship with flat rate bubble mailers. But that's just because I'm not shipping a huge amount at once. It's for personal use. For something like this I wouldn't know how to go about it. Are you the one in charge? Because I would happy to stay in touch and give you pointers.

Notebooks I would maybe do in flat rate boxes. And lighter things in a traditional box with postage. The USPS website is very easy to navigate. You can set the destination and the weight of the package to get an estimate cost of shipping. When your ready to ship you can print all the postage at home.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I'm the one in charge. We are still collecting stuff and should be done in the next week or two. We are all sending stuff to a school in Puerto Rico but that one is easy because they use the USPS as well.

[MauMau]

Definitely message me if you need help. You can send pictures of piles and I can make accurate guesses. Haha. I'd look at flat rate boxes for stuff to Puerto Rico too for the heavy things. And make sure you send Parcel Post and not first class for PR too.