Where to store your boxes in Milan over the university vacations: four places compared on cost, effort and risk, and the case where each one wins.
If you're wondering where to store your boxes in Milan over the summer, there are four places: the room you're leaving, your parents' house, a self storage unit, or a storage service with doorstep pickup. The first two depend on somebody saying yes. The third needs a vehicle and an afternoon, the fourth needs you, or someone you delegate, there on pickup day.
The question always turns up at the worst moment. I've been there too, as an away-from-home student at Bocconi: in June the last exam and the room you have to clear land in the same week, and you tape boxes shut between one revision session and the next, with tape that never comes off the roll. Below are the four routes side by side, then a section for each, because each one wins in a different case.
| Option | What you pay | How much effort | What can go wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
The room you're leaving | A reduced rent agreed with the landlord, if they accept | None: your things stay put | The landlord changes their mind, re-lets or renovates, and tells you in July |
Your parents' house | The journey, plus any excess baggage | High, and all yours | The book box, which weighs like a scooter and travels twice |
Traditional self storage | The unit's rate, usually in fixed sizes | Medium: load, drive, unload. Twice | You pay for a whole unit even if you half-fill it, and you need a vehicle |
Doorstep pickup, storage by the m² | Monthly rate for the size in m², plus a one-off pickup | Low: you pack and are there at pickup | The warehouse can't be visited: what you need in July stays out, or comes back with a partial redelivery |
Some landlords let you keep your things in the room over the vacations in exchange for reduced rent. If yours is one of them, it's the simplest route: nothing moves, and your things are already where they need to be, which is the purest form of logistics.
Except it doesn't depend on you. In summer many owners prefer to renovate or re-let, and university residences often require rooms to be emptied at the summer closure: the Bocconi residence rules, to take a public example, forbid leaving material of any kind in the room between the end of June and the end of August, shared spaces included. Look up your residence's date now, before mid-June, when everyone looks it up at once.
If they say yes, get it in writing: by July, a verbal agreement made in April is worth about as much as a promise made on a beach.
You can, but the limits all show up at once on the station sidewalk. Excess baggage is charged and carriers have precise rules: Ryanair, to take one with published conditions, caps checked bags at 20 kg and refuses anything over 32 kg or 81 x 119 x 119 cm. In September the problem comes back, identical and in reverse. With few things and home nearby it works; distance makes it harder, especially if home is in Sicily or Calabria.
Then there's the book box. Every away-from-home student has one, underestimates it, and hauls it up and down Italy twice a year like a penance. Add sports gear, a small appliance and two seasons of clothes, and the journey becomes a move with a ticket.
The real advantage is that it's cheap and your things stay under your own roof. If you're going home for three months and a car is driving down anyway, it's the right answer, and you can skip the next two sections.
Nowhere to leave your boxes until September?
We pick them up at your place, they stay in a locked, monitored warehouse, and when you're back you book the redelivery.
Would you rather talk to a person?+39 02 999 444 21WhatsApp
Summer student storageSelf storage centers rent locked units, usually by the month and in fixed sizes. You go in during opening hours, so if you need your tennis racket in July you go and get it.
The real cost is in the logistics. You do the transport, there and back: a vehicle, an afternoon, and the discovery that the book box exists in Milan too. And you pay for the unit's size even when your things fill half of it, because the smallest unit is what it is.
Classic self storage is designed for people with a business, a vehicle and frequent visits; for clearing one room once a year it's a loose fit. The full comparison is on our self storage for students in Milan page.
This is the Smoves service. We pick up your boxes where you live, in Milan or the provinces around it, and keep them in the warehouse all summer. When you're back you book redelivery to your new address, in September or earlier if you need it. What's left to you is filling the boxes and, on pickup day, being there yourself or having someone you delegate there.
The monthly rate depends only on the size in m² you book; pickup and transport you pay at the start, once. Redelivery is booked separately when you need it, with the price visible before you confirm. Commit to more months and the discount goes on the pickup. The items one by one are on pricing, and for the size there's the space calculator.
The limit is that the warehouse can't be visited. Whatever you need between June and September (the helmet, the passport, the books for a July exam) stays out, and it's worth deciding that now. If you later realize something's missing, a partial redelivery is requested by writing to us and we agree it together.
For a two-week break the sum flips: moving your things costs more than leaving them where they are, and the answer is nearly always the first option, which is to do nothing. Storage makes sense when the absence is long or the room has to be given up, and not when you're back on 7 January.
In winter it helps people with a short contract or a place that closes over the vacations. If that's you, the summer storage for students page describes the same service, which is seasonal in name only.
Smoves itself came out of that week in June, and the story is on about us. If your case fits none of the four options, write to us from contacts and we'll see what can be done.
Four options: in your room if the landlord allows it, at your parents' house, in a self storage unit, or in a storage service with doorstep pickup. The choice depends on how much you have, for how long, and whether you have a vehicle.
With the square-meter model you pay a fixed monthly rate for the size you take up, plus a one-off pickup and transport charge at the start. Redelivery is paid separately, when you book it. You see the rate and the pickup in the online quote before booking.
You or someone you delegate needs to be there: a flatmate, the concierge, a friend. You say who when you book, and in late June it's the most common case.
The warehouse can't be visited, so anything you need before September is better kept out of the boxes at pickup. A partial redelivery can still be requested by writing to us, and we agree it case by case.
It depends on each residence's own regulations, which set whether and when rooms must be cleared during the summer closure. Read them before making any plan: that date decides everything else.
It isn't counted in boxes but in square meters: sizes start at 1 m² and the space calculator tells you which one you fall into based on what you have. Maximum weight per box is 20 kg, because one person lifts it.
Nowhere to leave your boxes until September?
We pick them up at your place, they stay in a locked, monitored warehouse, and when you're back you book the redelivery.
Would you rather talk to a person?+39 02 999 444 21WhatsApp
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Verified reviews on Trustpilot.
“Excellent service. Whenever I had doubts or questions, they responded very quickly, within a day or two max. The redelivery service is as quick and convenient as it possibly can be, made my life as a student very easy.”
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Read on Trustpilot“Everything was super easy, very fast response from the company, the boxes were kept properly, any additional requests were granted. Would recommend!”
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Read on Trustpilot“Thank you very much for your support while we moved out of the student residence. The service was very professional and communication very clear and fast. We will be using your service again soon.”
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