LIST: Things you SHOULDN'T have brought with you

Too many coats

Too many scarves

How many is too many? I have loads of coats and scarves and use pretty much them all. I am from California though so my idea of a coat is anything with long sleeves.  My sis and I were discussing this yesterday. I think we were coat deprived as children. I rotate my coat just as often as I do my handbag.  I am always on the lookout for a new coat. Storing them is another issue though. 

I definitely agree with everyone about the clothes.  Regardless of weather differences - in my experience clothing is WAY cheaper to buy in the UK - when we go back I am planning to take a week's worth and that's it - I will buy the rest.  Agree about the shorts too - my DH argued with me last summer about wearing them, trying to tell me that no one wears them in England.  I was defiant and wore them anyway, but I did feel self-concious the whole time.

Only thing I'm worried about clothing wise when we go back is my daughter.  She is very hard to fit, pants wise - here she wears the Girls Plus sizes we find at JC Penneys or Sears.  I know they don't carry girls plus sizes in the UK.  Women's sizes are way too long in the legs unless we buy capris, and I hate to hem the legs, especially if they are flares or embroidered. 

In hindsight, when I went to the UK last spring, I would have brought two empty suitcases and brought all new clothes home with me. 

I agree on the shorts.  I feel odd wearing them here or anywhere we've been in Europe.  I bought about five skirts last summer to wear in place of them.

When I first came over here I didnt bring much, just two suitcases and due to family emergencies within the first yr here I had to fly back to the USA like 4 or 5 times.  So I did manage to bring alot over on those trips.  I only went home with a few changes of clothes so I could bring more stuff back with me.  Four plus yrs later I am now taking stuff back to USA.  With lack of closet/wardrobe space here, one cant see everything they have, so u dont wear everything u have.  Its the same here or USA u have ur fav clothes u cycle thru and alot u just never end up wearing. 

Worst thing I brought was my hockey skates.  They have an indoor ice rink nearby, but just isnt the same as skating outdors (for free) in Minneapolis, MN, when they freeze over the ball fields in the parks.  In the south of England the grass is green yr round.  Its mild here, but damp and cold to the bone feeling.

Dont bring anything electrical except lap top is fine as they have built in converters to thier power supplys.  Just make sure the power supply has changeable adapters for the different wall plug confirguration/layouts. 

I keep an on going list of things I want to bring back on my next visit from USA.  This way I never forget to bring anything back.  Plus I go with a limited amount of stuff so to save room to bring lots of stuff back. 

I have an Indefinate Leave to Remain visa, since like 2005, yet returning back to England from my last visit to the USA Dec 2006, I got hassled at immigration.  You just never know what reception u will recieve.  Maybe person I got was having a bad day. 

Laura           

Definitely brought too many clothes that didn't work last time.  Ended up at Primark buying things more suited to get through the trip. 

I've stayed mainly in London;  shoes were a good thing to have brought as I found good shoes in London to be pricey, and I'll be buying some good urban hikers and walkers this time before coming out for good.  I'm looking forward to having my good wool coats with me when I move out next winter, as I FROZE this last winter.  (Anyone else notice that winter heating in London public places and transport means that in the winter you have to dress in layers so you can not bake when inside and then bundle up so you don't freeze outside?)  I go through a pair of black dress boots almost every trip, too...

I will be bringing is my good pots and pans and knives (quality cookware is so expensive in the UK! in fact I always bring one of my friends, a pro chef, Swiss and German stainless steel cookware as a host gift when I visit), but am leaving my good china and silverware in storage.  Will also be bringing two sets of measuring cups and implements!  And all of my Cooks Illustrated bound cookbooks.

I'm going to risk bringing over my Ceiva, so my sisters can continue to send me family pics.  Hopefully a good transformer will keep it from blowing out.

And I'm trying to figure out whether it'll be worth bringing my Husqvarna Viking sewing machine and supplies over with me.  I teach sewing, so it might be some extra income, as well as from the embroidery.  I can buy a power supply there (have already checked), so that's not a problem.  Anyone have thoughts on that?

I dont know what a Cevia is, but what I have heard and read from people is that products brought over and used on a converter/transformer have at some point died.  I do believe converters were designed for occasional use, not constant use.  I tried a converter once on a VCR I brought over and all I got was smoke, lol.  I would find someone else who has brought over a say sewing maching and get their feed back.  Also becareful as transformers come in different voltage/watts.  So get the one that has the appropriate amount. 

Good Luck!  

I dont know what a Cevia is

http://www.ceiva.com

but what I have heard and read from people is that products brought over and used on a converter/transformer have at some point died.  I do believe converters were designed for occasional use, not constant use. 

When it comes to simple electronic devices, almost all the trouble people have in this respect will be due to trying to use the cheap converters which are simply not fit for the purpose.   There have been quite a number of threads on this subject if you do a search.

If you run through a proper transformer of suitable size you will not have any problems.   By "proper transformer" I mean something like a unit from Airlink or Newmarket.

Thanks for the links, Paul!  It'll save me some time, always at a premium these days...

Ceiva doesn't warranty their products outside of the US, but this is an old one, so I figure what the hell, if it dies I'll get a new one when I get back to the states.  I love the service tho, it's great to wake up to new pics that my sisters and friends around the world send!  I get to see what's going on in their lives, how grownup the kids are getting, etc.  Love it!

Our lawnmower.  Seriously.

OMG

I brought over so much rubbish that I ended up binning, it was unreal.
In the 6 months before I moved, I would bring a bag full of books and whatnot over on my visits and empty it and bring the empty bag back with me to the US. I found this massive huge tote bag in a luggage shop for like $20 which became priceless for transporting my junk.

I didnt bring anything major in the way of appliances. I did bring a huge box of stuffed animals from my childhood that I could not part with.

My top tip is dont bring any videos for those that still have them, you wont watch them.

So, if we own a lot of cheapy crap stuff in the US, we should just store it?  What do you do then in the UK, can you buy or rent furnished homes? 

We have a large family, 5 kids.  All of us are really tall, big people.  Two of my teens are 6'5.  Will we be able to find beds big enough? 

Thanks for your help! 
Ginny

All of my clothing, even things that I wasn't too sure about bringing.  I ended up moving in with my boyfriend, and there's simply not enough room for all of the clothing (no closets in the UK, didn't account for that!), so it's lying in one of my suitcases.  I wish I had only brought clothing that I'm really fond of, as I could have brought more books/other items had I not packed all of my clothing.

In Feb 2002 I arrived in England with two suitcases full of clothes, and not much else.

The one thing I'd like to point out: if you, or an elderly relative who decided to visit you, rely on sleeping with a heating pad at night, you may want to bring over an American pad.

Due to arthritis, my Mom bought a heating pad at Boots during one of her visits, but it shuts off after 90 minutes. (EU regulation.)

So if you may want to arrange an American heating pad and a top notch transformer.

In Feb 2002 I arrived in England with two suitcases full of clothes, and not much else.

Pretty much the same situation with myself.  I wish I had done things differently.

I brought my desktop speakers over and a proper step-down transformer (from Radio Shack).  They worked just fine, and I've never had a problem with the voltage, but I do regret lugging them through two airports and a train station when I could have spent a few pounds and bought a new set here.

The same goes for most small appliances--I can't imagine anything that's worth the bother of bringing it over that you can't buy in Argos, Tesco, etc.  Unless you have specialist cookware that you can't live without, I wouldn't bother with that either.  Most ovens are too small, as people have discovered, and you can get reasonably good stuff from Tesco, Marks & Spencer, etc. TK Maxx often has high-quality cookware for cheap (the one in Newcastle had a big selection of Le Creuset for less than half price recently, for example), and so on.

I brought a lot of miscellaneous computer cables and hand tools which I could have easily replaced for very little money.

The first aid kit, toiletries, and over-the-counter medicines were mostly a waste of space, too.  The only thing I haven't found here is naproxen (Aleve), and it's a little bit annoying to be restricted to buying 16 tablets of aspirin at a time (I have a lot of headaches!) but it just goes on the grocery list with the milk now.

Like everyone else, I had far too many clothes.  And even though I'm plus-sized and its not as easy for me to buy stuff that I like anywhere in the world, it hasn't been any more challenging here over all than it was at home.  I didn't bring anything in particular that wasn't used, but I realized recently that I had 7 nearly identical pairs of blue jeans.  Surely two would have sufficed!

Has anyone brought their 240v dryer with them and got it to work?

We did thinking 240v is 240v; well it isn't!!