"Home Address"

[Captain-Avenger]

Just curious here. My wife and I will be making America's Great Loop in a couple of years. What "home address" to you use when you are on extended cruises? If we have no home/apt/condo in a state what do we use to establish residency for things like taxes, and have mail sent to like a jury duty summons or excise taxes?

[oldragbaggers]

Florida is a good choice for residency since it is on part of the Loop anyway and has zero personal income tax. St. Brendan's Isle is a mail forwarding service that will provide you with a street address for establishing residency and I have been told their service is excellent. Getting a UPS office box is another possibility and they appear just like an apartment address. They will also forward your mail.

[s/v Moondancer]

We have a UPS box and the UPS store folks forward all our mail to where ever we are in the world. The store has a street address and we just use that for official purposes. Phil

[s/v Moondancer]

More importantly they also send bulky items like spare parts and tools which arrive more reliably than when the parts company try to send them. We ship to UPS in Florida and UPS transship anywhere in the world.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by oldragbaggers

......................
St. Brendan's Isle is a mail forwarding service that will provide you with a street address for establishing residency and I have been told their service is excellent. .....................

I've been using St. Brendan's Isle for the last 13 years of my cruising. They've always been reliable and efficient.

[Paul L]

It is really two problems: maintaining residency in your current state (assuming you want to do that) and dealing with collecting and forwarding mail.
For the first we use a relatives address in the state. While this should not really be required, we've found it really difficult dealing with various state agencies (DMV, Voters Registration, etc.) if we don't have an address in the state. With each of these agencies we also put in a mailing address that is our mail forwarding service. They happen to be out of state.
For mail handling and forwarding we use St Brendan's Isle in FLA. They are reasonably priced and will scan any letters you get to allow you to see them online. Great service. FLA is not our state of residence.

[AnchorageGuy]

We tried using relatives for our mail early on. It was a disaster. For over 20 years we have used a mail forwarding service in Florida, Our cars are registered, drivers license, and everything else is based on that address. We have both a P.O. Box for mail and a street address for shipping. This is important. The company we have been using is NATO in Sarasota, Fl. There are many of these services around the country but you will need one that is familiar with the needs and nuances of boaters so be sure and ask a lot of questions before you sign up. Chuck

[oldragbaggers]

Originally Posted by AnchorageGuy

We tried using relatives for our mail early on. It was a disaster. For over 20 years we have used a mail forwarding service in Florida, Our cars are registered, drivers license, and everything else is based on that address. We have both a P.O. Box for mail and a street address for shipping. This is important. The company we have been using is NATO in Sarasota, Fl. There are many of these services around the country but you will need one that is familiar with the needs and nuances of boaters so be sure and ask a lot of questions before you sign up. Chuck

I was so glad to see this post. I actually started a thread last week asking specifically about NATO and there were no responses about it. You must have missed it.

My husband and I are originally from Sarasota (sort of) and since we have family there we want that to be our home base. I was hoping to find a reliable service there so that when we are in town we can just pick stuff up. I definitely did not want to have to get my family involved in managing our business.

Thanks!!

[AnchorageGuy]

Becky, They have done a great job for us over the years, tell them Chuck and Susan referred you. We don't get anything for it but they like to know how folks find out about them. Good luck. Chuck

[Captain-Avenger]

Thank you all for your comments. I was considering a relative, but maybe better to pay someone who does it for a living.