UK-wide · Europe · worldwide
Places, and what firms mean by them
A list of towns tells you nothing. What is actually useful is what a firm means when it says local, nationwide or long distance, because all three are used loosely and all three usually appear in a sentence about price.
Ferry operators, port authorities and shipping lines appear here as operating context. No relationship with any is claimed.
Six words about geography
Nobody agrees what local means. Nationwide occasionally means nationwide through partners. Long distance is a threshold rather than a service. And once water is involved, the word that matters is whether the vehicle travels with the goods.
"Local" is the vaguest word on the site
To some firms it means the same postcode district. To others it means anywhere within an hour's drive. Since it almost always appears in a sentence about price — a local rate, a local minimum — the definition matters and it is rarely given.
Ask a firm to define it before you accept a figure that depends on it. It is a fair question and any straightforward answer tells you something about the firm.
"Nationwide" occasionally means partners
Most removers who say nationwide mean it: their vehicle, their crew, your goods staying put. A minority mean nationwide through a network of partner firms, with a transfer at a depot and a different crew delivering at the far end.
Neither is dishonest and they are different services. The question is one sentence long: do my goods stay on the same vehicle, and is it your crew at both ends?
"Long distance" is a threshold, not a service
There is no mileage at which a move officially becomes long distance. What actually changes is whether the job runs over more than one day, which raises a genuinely important question: where do my goods spend the night, and is the vehicle emptied?
A vehicle that stays loaded and secured overnight is a different proposition from one emptied into a depot, and the second involves handling that nobody mentioned.
Islands, Europe and overseas
On an island move the question is whether the vehicle travels with the goods. On a European move the answer is almost always a road movement with a crossing in it. Beyond that the vocabulary changes entirely and the international pages translate it.
We collect from anywhere on the mainland — London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol among them — for domestic moves and for consignments heading abroad.
Places
Questions about coverage
- Where do you actually work?
- Across the UK mainland, Wales, Scotland and the islands a ferry serves; throughout Europe by road; and worldwide by sea and air. That is a genuine answer rather than a claim, and the entries here explain what the qualifying words mean.
- What should "nationwide" mean?
- That your goods stay on one vehicle with one firm. At some companies it means nationwide through partners, with a transfer in the middle and a different crew delivering. Both are legitimate; only one is what people picture.
- Is there an agreed definition of "long distance"?
- No. What actually changes with distance is whether the job spans more than one day, and therefore where your goods spend the night. That is the question worth asking rather than the label.
- What changes on an island move?
- Whether the vehicle travels with the goods or the goods are transferred into something else. Firms rarely volunteer which, and it changes both the handling and sometimes the cover.
- Does "European" mean by road?
- Nearly always, in practice. Where a firm says European and means a sea or air movement, the process and the paperwork are completely different and it is worth clarifying which you are being quoted for.
Not sure which word describes your move?
Both addresses, roughly what is going, and how firm the dates are. If you are unsure which service you actually need, say so — it is the commonest note we get and the easiest to answer.