A deal is agreed. Then comes the question that quietly kills more sponsorships for travellers than any other: where do we send it?

If your answer is a paragraph explaining that you are currently in one country, moving to another next month, and not entirely sure after that, you have just handed the brand a reason to postpone. Not refuse — postpone, which amounts to the same thing.

This lesson exists because it is a solved problem and almost nobody solves it.

Have an address before you need one

Use a mail-forwarding service. You get a permanent street address in a country with good postal links. The US is the usual choice, because most brands can ship there without thinking. Parcels arrive there, and the service forwards them to wherever you actually are.

This is how it looked when a camera company asked us where to ship:

[Name] + [box number] ([forwarder name]) [street address], Doral, FL, USA

From here it will automatically be forwarded for me to Panama, where I will pick it up in April.

Their reply was three words long: April will be fine.

That is the entire point. The brand is given a normal address in a normal country. They ship, they move on. Your travelling is your logistics problem, not theirs, and it never becomes a topic of conversation.

Without this, the same exchange becomes two weeks of emails about whether anything can realistically reach you, and somewhere in that fortnight the enthusiasm goes.

The alternatives

A forwarder is the robust answer. These also work:

  • A fixed address at home. A parent, a friend, your own address if you have one. Fine if you are going back, or if someone can forward things on. The weakness is that the person becomes a dependency.
  • A friend in the right country. Useful for one-off deliveries, awkward as a system.
  • Poste restante. Workable in some countries, unreliable in others, and you have to be there when it arrives.
  • A hotel or hostel you have booked. Only for things arriving inside a narrow window, and ask first.
  • The brand’s local distributor. Worth raising. If a company has an importer in a country you are heading to, collecting from them is often simpler for everyone, and it puts you in front of another contact.

Customs is your problem, not theirs

Sponsored gear is not a gift as far as a customs authority is concerned, and the recipient usually pays.

  • Ask what value will be declared. A brand declaring full retail on a free product can land you with a bill that exceeds what the thing is worth to you.
  • Expect duty on anything substantial, and budget for it before you agree.
  • Know your own country’s thresholds if it is going home.
  • Say so if the duty makes it unviable. A brand would usually rather send a smaller item or use a local distributor than have their product stuck in a customs warehouse.

This is not a reason to refuse deals. It is a reason to ask one question before saying yes.

Give a date, and mean it

When you cannot receive something immediately, say exactly when you can.

“We are still in Costa Rica and will be able to pick it up around the week of the 17th of April” is a better answer than “sometime in spring”, because it lets the brand plan around you. In our case it was accepted without comment.

Then keep them updated while the parcel is in transit: a two-line message when it arrives at the forwarder, another when you collect it. A brand whose product has vanished into Central America with no word is a brand wondering whether they made a mistake.

A practical checklist

Before you agree to any physical sponsorship:

  1. Where is it going?
  2. Who pays duty, and roughly how much?
  3. What date can you realistically have it in your hands?
  4. Do they need it back if it does not suit?
  5. Does the deadline for your side start on dispatch, or on you receiving it?

That last one catches people out. Agree that your three months begin when the product reaches you, not when it leaves the warehouse. Otherwise a slow shipment eats a third of your delivery window before you have touched the thing.