Heading off for a gap year adventure overseas after you finish university? Or perhaps you’re lucky enough to work for a company which offers sabbatical leave.

If you have exciting travel plans and will be away for 6 months, a year or even longer, you’re likely to be vacating your house or flat. This means you’ll need to make arrangements for all your furniture, unneeded clothing, books and other belongings while you’re away.

You may be able to leave some things at a family member’s house, but that’s a lot of space taken up their spare room.

A better solution is long-term storage, which is popular among backpackers, keen travellers, digital nomads and people who regularly have to fly abroad for work.

It lets you leave behind anything you don’t need for your trip, so you can travel light. But it’s all waiting safely and securely for you when you get home.

Read on for more info on how to find and book long-term storage in Kingston upon Thames with Kiwi Storage. The good news is that it’s really easy, so you can focus on booking hotels, planning your itinerary and finding your passport.

4 steps to sorting out storage ahead of your trip

You’ll have a million things to do to prepare for your thrilling overseas adventure. The good news though is that sorting out storage is relatively easy. The only real chore will be sorting out and packing your belongings.

Follow these 4 easy steps to get your long-term storage sorted:

1. Pack everything up

When packing ready for long-term storage, your two main priorities will be maximising space and protecting your stuff.

Follow our handy packing tips to hit both of these goals:

• Use strong, double-walled boxes with handles
• Avoid over packing boxes with heavy items – as they’re likely to split
• Make a full inventory list of all your items, and label each box with the contents
• Take photographs of everything
• Bubble wrap fragile or breakable items and mark boxes with ‘fragile’ tape
• Dismantle furniture before it arrives in storage – it’ll save time.

Read more tips for packing your unit here.

2. Make an assessment of how large a storage unit you’ll need

Start by counting up the number of boxes you have. Use our space estimator tool, which tells you roughly how many bags and boxes will fit in each unit, along with what each is typically used for (i.e. student storage). There are also images of each unit type filled with stuff, to help you visualise how much you can fit in.

3. Book your unit

It’s easy to do this online. All you need to do is choose a unit size and moving in date, and upload your ID, a selfie photo and proof of address. Pay for your first month, and that’s it – you’re all set!

Get started here.

4. Move your stuff

With your unit booked, all that’s left to do is hire a van and move your belongings to our long-term storage facility in Kingston upon Thames. It’s centrally located, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding us.

There are other options though. You can save time by booking our sister company Kiwi Movers to move everything for you. They can even help with boxes and packing. Get a quote here.

And if you will only be away for a few weeks or months, you may want to take advantage of our mobile storage solution. This takes absolutely all the hard work out of moving your stuff into storage. We pick up everything from your home, store it securely and deliver it back to your doorstep when get back from your trip.

Useful info about our long term storage facility in Kingston Upon
Thames

Our Kingston upon Thames storage facility is spacious, central and convenient, with a wide choice of flexible storage options available.

You’ll find it on London Road, one of Kingston’s main high streets. It’s easy to reach by road (with ample parking available) and rail, with Hampton Wick train station not far away. The area is well served by local bus routes too. And of course, Heathrow Airport is under an hour away by public transport.

Here’s the full address:
163 London Road
Kingston upon Thames
KT2 6NU

We’re open 7 days a week, so you can drop off or collect during the day Monday to Sunday.

For prices, more information or to ask a question about our long-term storage solutions, feel free to give us a call on 020 8264 0550.