I have a storage unit on the East Coast, I need to ship it to the West. No furniture, just a bunch of boxes. heaviest thing I have is about 400 cds and jewel cases in a few boxes, it's heavy. Lot of valuables (baseball cards, father's stamps from 1800s, etc)

What is the best way to do this?

Whatever I end up doing I would have to physically go there (I'm on West coast).

Fly in, then rent a cargo van one way?

It's the smallest unit in the facility. I was hoping to freight it or ship it. I don't want to drive for a week or so.

I see. You could try to find a freight forwarding company there, and get a bulk rate to put it all on a pallet and have it shrink wrapped, then sent with a bunch of other stuff that is going to the west coast on an 18-wheeler. Logistics companies do stuff like that.

aren't there those companies that drive coast to coast with big wooden crates for military households? dunno if they do civilian shipping too though

If you put the stuff on pallets and wrap it, You could literally call any freight company and get a quote to do it. The longer you are willing to wait the cheaper it will be, If they can fill a trailer with other things going that way.

There is many company's that do this..

Does your storage facility have access to your unit (i.e. you use their lock and not yours)? If so, then you may be able to arrange to have your facility allow a mover to see your unit and give an estimate for the move, or for a freight forwarding company to come and give an estimate for packing and moving your stuff. If not, and you have to travel to visit it to personally let folk's in then you may end up waiting close to a week to have workers pack up after estimating the cost. If you pack on pallets you'll need to get a pallet, pack things up, and get it to a freight company. You might just find that flying out, getting an uber to a rental truck, driving to the storage area, moving the stuff into a truck or van and then driving across country is the easiest, quickest, and cheapest.

You can try a Hotshot website where you post what you want moved, where it's located and where you want it. I did that with a dozer and a skid steer. I think it was $800 to move a dozer from Kentucky to Kansas.

Might be some of the worst advice I have ever read on this forum dude, from allowing someone I cannot monitor to have access to expensive merchandise, to driving 3500 miles in a box truck. Holy fuk dude.

I've used a moving POD once. At the time it was about $1000 from DFW area to the Detroit area for one POD. Didn't bring much furniture and that thing was jammed. Driver commented on how heavy it was. I think now there is a weight restriction.

But prices have increased. For my last cross country move I didn't really find any cheap way to get it done. Ended up renting a box truck and driving it myself.

Container companies:

https://www.move.org/best-moving-container-companies/

Hi skier
I also faced a similar situation when I got a transfer from the company to a new working location. As I want to shift all my official documents to a new location, I seek help from the international moving company to shift all the documents to a new location. The documents contain mostly valuable things related to the company accounts. I also find a secure storage unit to store the documents temporary until the new office gets ready for work. So, in my opinion, better to seek help from any international movers to shift your belongings in a secure way.