Best way to get to Dulles with a lot of luggage?

[Anonymous]

Drive yourself in a van. No way all that stuff fits in a “taxi.” Have you flown before?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Drive and park. Better to have your own car seat, etc. Spring for the daily parking which will make life so much easier.

This! Uber back and forth will cost as much as parking. Long term parking can be cheaper unless you are staying for months!

[Anonymous]

We have travelled to Asia with 8 suitcases and 4 carry-ons - as we are a family of 4 and we recently went to attend a wedding. Our friends dropped our luggage in their minivan, and we also took our car.

Not sure if you can all your stuff into a minivan? There will be a car seat for the baby, 3 or 4 family members and a driver + the luggage. Maybe?? You can certainly do a dry run to see if it all fits properly and then plan accordingly.

What we did do was took a brightly printed duct tape (the kinds used in duct tape art) and neatly stuck very visible and conspicuous strips to make a big square with the duct tape, on both of the largest sides of all the suitcases. We also did the same for the carry-ons, carseat and stroller. We also put airtags in all of them, took pictures of all the luggage, and put leather luggage tags on all of them with our address, phone number and email.

We wanted to make sure that no one would steal our luggage as we had expensive gifts in our luggage. The big square designs on all of the suitcases made it very obvious which luggage was ours to everyone at the airport. We were also able to track all our luggage. Go early to the airport to ensure that there is space in the airplane to load all your luggage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have travelled to Asia with 8 suitcases and 4 carry-ons - as we are a family of 4 and we recently went to attend a wedding. Our friends dropped our luggage in their minivan, and we also took our car.

Not sure if you can all your stuff into a minivan? There will be a car seat for the baby, 3 or 4 family members and a driver + the luggage. Maybe?? You can certainly do a dry run to see if it all fits properly and then plan accordingly.

What we did do was took a brightly printed duct tape (the kinds used in duct tape art) and neatly stuck very visible and conspicuous strips to make a big square with the duct tape, on both of the largest sides of all the suitcases. We also did the same for the carry-ons, so I suggest you should do the same and also for the carseat and stroller. We also put airtags in all of them, took pictures of all the luggage, and put leather luggage tags on all of them with our address, phone number and email.

We wanted to make sure that no one would steal our luggage as we had expensive gifts in our luggage. The big square designs on all of the suitcases made it very obvious which luggage was ours to everyone at the airport. We were also able to track all our luggage. Go early to the airport to ensure that there is space in the airplane to load all your luggage.

Fixed it in bolded, somehow these words got deleted in my first post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We take 2 suitcases per person when we travel to visit our families back in Asia. We carry gifts for a lot of people, and this is common in our community of immigrants. I don’t know why people think this is so unusual.
OP, we take 2 cabs to the airport.

Lol +1 we are diaspora. We don’t
Travel
Lightly.

[Anonymous]

Unless half the suitcases are gifts that you plan to get off your hands as soon as you arrive, what is your plan for getting around once you arrive there? And what’s your plan for getting around the airport? How will you get through security? You need a better plan.

[Anonymous]

What are the gifts? Genuinely curious. It seems costly to check that many bags and inconvenient to transport them. I’m so curious what they could be.

[Anonymous]

Ridiculous amounts of luggage. "Immigrant diaspora" need to get control of themselves.

[Anonymous]

This belongs in the Travel forum.

[Anonymous]

We have 4 kids. Uber black XL is a suburban or Escalade so plenty of room but are you sure you need that much stuff? That I’d be worried about the other end

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless half the suitcases are gifts that you plan to get off your hands as soon as you arrive, what is your plan for getting around once you arrive there? And what’s your plan for getting around the airport? How will you get through security? You need a better plan.

Yeah, whatever you get to the airport in your van or whatever, you have to wrangle on the other end. If you have family picking you up, that might be fine (although will it all fit in their car?). Are we talking four suitcases full of gifts for family, or just random crap you think you need?

[Anonymous]

Yeah no. We travel back home every year too and pack light. Traveling with that much stuff is really stressful and hard physically. We have to get on a train at hour destination and then need someone to pick us up. We have to be able to move all of our luggage at once. Back in the day living in the USA was so special that you had to bring back all the cool stuff people can't afford in the home country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have 4 kids. Uber black XL is a suburban or Escalade so plenty of room but are you sure you need that much stuff? That I’d be worried about the other end

We take UberXL often when traveling. It can also be a Buick Enclave/Chevy Traverse type car which would need the rear seat folded to even fit all that luggage. So with a family of six you are rolling the dice. We have a family of four and have been very squished in an UberXL before. I’m not sure if they are allowing front seat passengers again or not, but they weren’t the last time we used them.

[Anonymous]

Buy your gifts locally. It's not like Asia is short of the stuff you're lugging there.

[Anonymous]

We’re Asian, return to Asia with gifts, and somehow manage NOT to have a ton of luggage.

The “diaspora” PPs clearly don’t plan well, or belong to an excessively materialistic circle.