Where to Get Moving Boxes in Hershey, PA: Options Compared

Where do you get moving boxes in Hershey? The usual answers — the hardware stores on the corridor, Marketplace freebies, the liquor store down the road — all work, and all come with the same hidden costs: your time, your tape, and a pile of cardboard afterward. There is also a fourth option built for exactly the way Hershey moves: crate rental, delivered anywhere in Derry Township and picked up when you are done. Here is the full comparison.

Buying boxes around Hershey

The Hershey-Hummelstown corridor has the standard retail lineup: Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart all stock moving boxes, and nearby U-Haul dealers carry specialty sizes like wardrobe and dish packs. Prices run $1.50 to $4 per box, and a typical Hershey apartment or townhome needs 25 to 60 of them depending on size. Add tape, packing paper, and the store runs themselves, and a two-bedroom move lands at $160 to $220 — before you spend an evening assembling and a weekend later disposing.

The free-box hunt

Hershey’s constant turnover — residents cycling through the medical center, hospitality staff rotating seasonally, students arriving every fall — means Marketplace and Craigslist almost always have free moving boxes listed. The quality is the gamble: boxes that survived one move may not survive yours, sizes never match, and used boxes can carry residue and pests. For a carload of dorm belongings, acceptable. For a household you care about, think twice.

The Hershey-specific case for rental

Hershey moves have a shape unlike anywhere else in Central PA: a huge share are time-limited rotations. Residents and fellows at Penn State Health arrive for two to five years; nurses sign multi-year contracts; grad students enroll for a program. Buying $200 of cardboard for a home you will leave on a schedule is pure waste — and so is buying thirty totes you will either ship across the country or abandon. Rental matches the rotation exactly: crates arrive when you do, leave when you do, and never become your problem.

1. Book your planChoose 10, 20, or 35 crates at cratemovers.com — most Hershey apartments fit the 20-crate plan at $139 for the week.
2. We deliver to Derry TownshipCrates arrive clean and sanitized at your apartment complex, townhome, or house — evening windows available for shift workers.
3. Pack around your scheduleA full week means packing after shifts, not burning a day off. Lids snap shut; no tape needed.
4. MoveUniform crates stack fast in elevators and roll through breezeways on the included dolly.
5. We collect the emptiesPickup happens at your new address — anywhere in our Central PA service area.

How many containers does a Hershey move need?

Hershey’s housing mix produces three distinct move sizes. Med center apartments — the largest single category — are studios to two-bedrooms: 20 to 40 boxes’ worth of belongings, or 10 to 20 crates. The townhome communities scattered across Derry Township run 40 to 60 boxes, or 20 to 25 crates. The single-family neighborhoods toward Palmdale and Hummelstown are full household moves: 60 to 90 boxes, or 35 crates, once the garage and basement are honest. The mistake is sizing for the rooms you can see; every household has a closet, a shelf, or a storage unit that adds ten boxes nobody counted.

• Med center apartment (studio–1BR): 10–20 crates, or 20–30 boxes
• Two-bedroom apartment or townhome: 20–25 crates, or 40–60 boxes
• Single-family home: 35 crates, or 60–90 boxes
• Larger homes, or anything with outbuildings: 50 crates, or 100+ boxes

The supply list beyond boxes

Budget for the full list, not just the boxes: three to six rolls of tape at $3 to $5 each, a $10 dispenser, $15 to $25 of packing paper, plus markers, labels, and mattress bags. A typical Hershey household spends $40 to $80 on top of the box total — and makes two or three trips to do it, because nobody buys enough tape the first time.

The rental version of this list is a marker and some labels. Crates arrive assembled, close with snap-on lids, and need no tape at all; the included dolly covers the equipment line. Fragile packing comes from your own towels and linens. For a med center household packing between shifts, the difference between "assemble fifty boxes" and "start filling" is the difference between this week and next.

The Hershey sourcing timeline

Hershey’s calendar changes the sourcing math. In the off-season, two weeks of lead time covers any strategy — retail runs, a free-box hunt, or a crate booking. From late May through August, double it: the July 1 med center cycle pulls crates, trucks, and even retail box stock toward the same fortnight. Four weeks out, book the rental or begin the hunt. Two weeks out, start packing the rooms you use least. Moving week should contain nothing but daily life and the coffee maker — the last thing packed and the first thing opened at the new address. The rotation will supply plenty of stress on its own; the boxes do not need to contribute.

The med center math: containers for a two-to-five-year stay

Hershey’s defining moving demographic deserves its own calculation. A resident, fellow, or travel nurse arrives for a defined stay — two to five years — and then leaves on a schedule they do not control. Every container decision should be priced against that exit. Cardboard is waste on arrival: fifty boxes serve one move and become a disposal problem in a town where you will not live long enough to reuse them. Retail totes are waste on departure: thirty purchased bins either ride the moving truck to your next city at freight prices or join the donation pile. Rental is the only option priced for a guest — it serves the move-in completely, disappears entirely, and can be booked again at the next duty station without a storage unit in between.

The same math applies to Hershey’s other revolving populations: grad students, contract staff, and families building homes who rent in the township for a year first. If your address has an end date, own the furniture and rent the containers.

The apartment-complex logistics favor rental too. Elevator reservations are measured in hours, and a move staged as thirty stackable crates clears a reserved elevator window with time to spare — while the same volume in loose cardboard turns the reservation into a negotiation with the leasing office. Loading docks, dollies, and timed windows are the med center move’s native environment, and crates were designed for exactly it.

The Hershey store run, mapped

Retail sourcing here runs on two roads. The Route 322 corridor between Hershey and Hummelstown carries the home-improvement anchors — close enough together that the inevitable second store run costs fifteen minutes, not an evening. Route 39 — Hersheypark Drive — and the 422 stretch toward Palmyra hold the discount retail and a scattering of U-Haul neighborhood dealers: storage yards and auto shops that stock the specialty sizes like wardrobe boxes and dish packs. Two practical notes: small dealers keep thin weekday stock and sell out of popular sizes on moving weekends, so call before you drive, and summer Saturdays add tourist traffic to every errand. A box run that takes forty minutes in March can take ninety in July — one more reason the July cycle punishes last-minute sourcing.

Packing week on a med center schedule

For the household packing around shifts, the week works best in shift-sized pieces. Day one: the non-essentials — books, seasonal clothes, the spare room — forty-five minutes after a shift, then stop. Days two through five: one category per session, lids snapping shut between sessions so the apartment stays livable and nothing becomes a trip hazard at 5 a.m. Day six: closets and the bathroom overflow. The kitchen packs the evening before moving day, minus one pan, one mug, and the coffee setup. The pattern that fails is the heroic single day: twelve hours of packing after a week of twelve-hour shifts produces rushed boxes, unlabeled containers, and the cracked casserole dish. Small daily sessions beat the marathon every time, and lidded crates are what make small sessions possible.

The verdict for Hershey movers

If you own a houseful of belongings and are moving long-distance, buy some totes and ship them. For literally every other Hershey move — the apartment turnovers, the med center arrivals, the townhome upgrades across Derry Township — crate rental is cheaper than buying once you count your time, and incomparably easier. The search results for "moving boxes Hershey PA" will show you stores. The better answer shows up at your door.