Organize your move to Kenya

Hi,

When we moved from the UK a few years ago, we basically packed all our good furniture, TV's, telephones and fridge/freezer into a 40' container.  We also took a car in the same container.  We opted to spend a more money on a 'door to door' service, which (for around £4000), our things were packed, loaded into the container in the UK.  On arrival, the container was brought by rail to Embakasi depot, where it was cleared.  Our things were then taken from the depot to our place, in Nairobi.  It was worth the additional cost, as it took away one 'headache'.

It is essential to have a comprehensive list of everything in the container, for the Bill of Lading and individual packing boxes need to have their contents written on the outside.  In our case all the items we brought were used.  New things tend to attract duty.

Was everything worth bringing?  Well no.  The posh telephone we had wouldnt work, as the Kenyan system wasn't compatible and it was just too much hassle to make it compatible.  The UK TV's didn't work either, except to play videos.  We bought local TV's in the end.  The car struggled on the Kenyan roads and we sold it a year later, but made quite a lot of money from that.  If moving from the UK, of course the appliances are 240v - same as Kenya.  If moving from the states, or elsewhere, additional equipment has to be bought to step down the voltage.

Pitfalls:  We had to be in country before the container arrived and it was significantly delayed.  This meant that we had to buy a few items of furniture locally (Bed, Chairs and table), plus a cooker and a small fridge, a cost for which we had not really budgeted.


Hope this helps.

Thanks for your contribution Longonot62!

Harmonie.

We're moving to nairobi from the uk in Aug. We were thinking of shipping some of our quality furniture items like leather couches. Is it worth it?

Regards