| Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 | |
Shipping souvenirs back homeCountry forums / Middle East / Israel | ||
Hi there! We are traveling for six months and so far we had been in Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and India. We are back in Egypt after India and I wanted to ship some souvenirs with DHL. A wooden mask from Uganda and India, a wooden boat from Egypt and an elephant made of wood from India. In DHL told me they were antiques and that I needed a special permmit to ship them. We are going to go to Israel next week and I want to ship all that home but I dont know if in Israel would come out with something like that also. Do you know a company that can do that in Jerusalem as well as sending all that home??? Thanks in advance! Hiram | ||
I mean if the souvenirs need a permmit a company that also would help me out to get it?? | 1 | |
From Israel you can use either EMS at the post office or any of the major international carriers (UPS, DHL, FEDEX, etc.) which all have offices in Israel. | 2 | |
It occurs to me that I am not entirely qualified to respond. As the only items I posted from Egypt were postcards in 1989. Only after I insisted the stamps on the postcards be franked in front of me, did I entrust them into the Egyptian Postal Service. Does the DHL counter clerk you visited have a degree in Egyptian, Ethiopian, Ugandan and Indian antiquities? I doubt if he has. Before traipsing your souvenirs over the Sinai, and in and out of Israel’s excellent security systems, perhaps you should try: | 3 | |
You will have two customs procedures to worry about: In the country from which you ship the items, and in the country of destination. You are not saying whether the items are actually antique (or culturally valuable) or not. If they are not, I suggest you send them home by parcel from any Israeli post office, by surface mail unless you are in a hurry. That will likely be much cheaper than DHL. I am sure Israeli TT users can advise, but my guess is that Israel is business-like enough to let you ship a parcel home without all the Third-World rubbish bureaucracy/paranoia like displaying the contents in front of the post office clerk for a clearance etc. After all, in most industrialized countries you can bring a parcel to the post office fully wrapped and sealed, and customs formalities are limited to filling in a customs declaration. Just write "souvenirs" and indicate a low (but credible) value. The "real" customs inspection will come in the country of destination. Which is it? If the country gets huge volumes of mail from Israel, your parcel may just sail through without anyone noticing. However, if your parcel contains genuine antiquities you may face customs duties, fines or confiscation. Another potential problem is the material of the goods: wood. Many countries restrict the import of wood (especially if non-industrial/untreated) for all sorts of reasons - hygiene, contamination with pests, endangered species regulations etc. Check with the customs authorties in the country of destination first. Another shipping option is do-it-yourself air freight. The per-kilo tariff is usually very low, but there are lump-sum charges to be paid at either end. Normally not worth it unless you ship at least 20 or 30 or 40 kg. | 4 | |