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Have you ever wondered if you can ship a person? If so, you’re not alone. It’s surprisingly a fairly popular search topic on Google. Maybe you want to send yourself in a box as a prank. Maybe you want to stow yourself away in a suitcase to skimp on airfare. Whatever the case, we’ve got some bad news for you.
No, You Cannot Legally Ship a Person
It is illegal to ship a person, so don’t even try! That includes shipping yourself, too. Neither the US Postal Service, FedEx, nor UPS allow for “human mail,” and neither do any smaller regional carriers. Although…you can ship someone’s organs if they’re an organ donor, but that’s another story.
Some Recent Instances of People Trying to Ship People
Believe it or not, there have been many instances over time where people have tried to ship a person (or themselves). We’ve listed a couple recent cases below, because this is obviously incredibly useful information.
- In 2013, Charles McKinley successfully sent himself from New York City to Dallas in a box. He wanted to save money on airfare and decided to charge his former employer the shipping fees. Charles successfully traveled by plane, but he was discovered on the final leg of his journey. Sorry, Charlie.
- Back in 2017, YouTube personality Logan Paul stowed his friend away in a suitcase on a flight to Paris. We have zero idea how he got away with it, but from what we can see in that video, it looks like he did. Or maybe he didn’t. Who knows? Maybe the authorities caught wind of the video and used it as evidence to arrest him. The world may never know.
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RA TERR
The cost would be more than a plane ticket:
150lbm person, 16 oz per pound, 58 cents per oz is 2400 stamps at a cost of $1390. And assuming a stamp is 1 square inch(close enough), the box would be (2400in^2/44in^2/ft^2)/6 = 2.7778 ft cube in order to have enough surface area for all the postage stamps . You get more leg room in coach, so take the plane!