When we first started traveling for extended periods in 2022, we discovered that the USPS only allows a temporary mail-hold to be set for 30 days. Home mail delivery has to be reestablished for at least one day before a new mail-hold can be put in place. So during that first trip west in 2022, our wonderful niece visited our home three times to pick up the mail.

We now set a temporary change of address with the USPS and our mail is forwarded to a private mail handling service. We use Escapees, who provides us with a private mail box at their facility. Escapees scans the outer envelope so when we log into our account, we can then see what mail has arrived. We have the option to trash the mail, hold it until we ask them to forward it to us or have the mail opened and the contents scanned so that we see what the letter contained.

Surprisingly USPS does not treat all mail the same way during a temporary change of address.

Unaware that magazines are only forwarded for 60 days, we lost a number of New Yorker Magazines in 2025. The best option, if you travel for more than 60 days, is to change your address directly with the magazine publisher so that you don’t have to rely on forwarding by USPS.

One other issue is what happens to the “not forwarded” mail. We thought that mail would not be delivered. After all, you can set a temporary change of address for as long as a year. Can you imagine how big a pile of “junk mail” can accumulate in that time?

Our experience has been that our “regular” mail carrier knows not to deliver junk mail to our home while our mail is being forwarded. Unfortunately, mail is frequently delivered by substitute carriers. It’s a mixed bag with these folks. This year, we decided to tape our mail box shut with gaffer tape and put a note on the box that read: “Temporary Mail Forward, No mail Please!”.

That worked for about a week until this happened.

In addition to delivering mail, the carrier also knocked our doorbell off. Time to call the Narberth Post Office…