Moving and Board Games

A real-life image of me with my board game collection.

I don't have an answer to this question yet, but... how do you successfully and economically move a large collection of board games? I ask because in just a couple of months, I will be moving from North Carolina to Georgia. My boyfriend and I live in a two-bedroom apartment, and while we are generally modest people who have not overdone it in terms of worldly possessions... 

I probably have a collection of about 100 board games. And I love them all. If it were practical, I would pile them up and luxuriate upon them like Smaug. 

My first step should probably be to take inventory. I'm not 100% sure how to do this efficiently, but it would be wise to know exactly what I am dealing with. The bulk of my collection is in my office at home, but I also have a secondary collection at school. (Some of those might not make it out of my classroom alive—rambunctious high schoolers are rough on games.) 

Once I have a complete understanding of the size of my board game collection, I might want to... you know... see if I can thin the herd a little. I have never sold off any of my board games, and the thought of parting with my precious cardboard treasures fills me with sadness. But if there is stuff in my collection that I don't truly want, it would be best to see that it goes to a loving home. I already know I will want to keep most of my games—I haven't counted them up, but I definitely know what I have, if that makes sense. And the games I have actively excite me still. 

Next, I think I will slowly begin to start packing games up so I can get an early sense of what I'm dealing with. A lot of my smaller games will probably pack very easily, which will give me a sense of comfort as I am "nexting." (I've decided that "nexting" is the opposite of nesting. It's preparing to move on to a new place!) Then I will be able to turn my attention to packing larger games.

As I pack, I'm going to keep a notebook and log the contents of each box. That way, I will know which games are in "Office 1" when I unpack later. I'll also know how many boxes of various things I packed and whether everything is accounted for when we get to Atlanta. I feel like this information could be useful both for the move itself and for giving me a sense of how much stuff I have managed to accumulate. 

Dear readers, do you have any tips for moving collections of board games? If so, please comment. I welcome your advice!

​For my part, I plan to post a few more times about my experience of moving with board games, in case it helps somebody else out down the line. 

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