May I ask those of you who are, have or

Ciao, musclesnmorsels

From your description, it seems that you are in the American military, transferred to an American or born base, you speak of Marina, therefore, it is likely that your destinations are one of the following Naples, Gaeta (Campania region) - Livorno (Regione Toscana), Maddalena (Sardinia Region), Sigonella (Sicily Region) - As far as I know, from clients I had, with situations similar to yours - The Bases are all well equipped and quite autonomous, compared to Italy - The four regions, are far from them, they have life costs, real estate purchase and above all logistics, extremely different - from a point of view of interaction with Italian life, certainly Tuscany and Campania, offer more attractions –

For the transport of your things, which you think you can not carry in your suitcase, one of the best carriers from the USA, for Italy, it is otherwise UPS - in Italy it has a very good organization, almost completely autonomous, only rarely it is used to SDA (Italian Post) –

For the car, if you use a property of the navy base, you have no problems to circulate in Italy, If you want to buy one, you must have a residence in Italy and the relative tax code
(codice fiscale ) , if you are an employee of a foreign company (army uses) - you will need an Elective Residence - otherwise, your employer Italian or non-Italian company but with a valid tax organization in Italy, will provide, will provide a residence for work in Italy - in both cases of residence in Italy - you must have a house or apartment where you live, or rent, or purchase - without housing YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE RESIDENCE - WITHOUT RESIDENCE NON YOU CAN BUY A CAR.

More info , about residence , taxes, and more , here > http://www.lifeinitaly.it/Inglese/italyresidenceguide.htm

Some info (photos) about Turistic Italy , here > http://www.lifeinitaly.it/italiasegreta/Italia_Segreta.htm

as Italian, I wish you a good Italy ..

Ugo, thank you for this great list of information you provided. I should make clear I am not active duty military nor will I be on this move. I am a civilian contractor. I have 30 days paid time to live on base and find housing on my own in the community which I have set to do through AHRN website. I am also working with several facebook groups in Aviano to locate household goods I can procure and move into a home after my 30 days ends. I will not be bringing any of my own HHG with me from the states, not worth the cost of moving so little stuff. So yes, I will have a house or apartment in which I live in while spending my 5 years in Italy for this contract position. I am shipping 3 boxes of 25kg each through USPS with my basic essentials like clothes, coats, hats, shoes etc. All else comes with me and my 3 bags on the flight over from Chicago to JFK to London and then to Venice where I am picked up to get to Aviano. I am working to try and get orders cut so that I can have my car shipped through a military POV shipping location not far from me. This will cost me nothing and save me $2300 vs doing it commercially. Its also much faster this way. Thanks again for your help.

A few things to consider.
1. Use a bank like usaa. They are use to working with banking and car insurance over in italy, bills like rent need an italian iban... electric and gas are billed each 3 months or so.
2. Get rid of AT&T. They should let you suspend or stop your service 30 or 60 days after you get to italy. Cellphones plans (pay as you go) in Itay are super cheap compaired to the states. Main companies in italy are TiM, Vadaphone and Wind. Its not worth keeping your carrier due to money and rates from the states. (E.g. talk text and 4g at 10 euros per month here in italy no contract)
Install whatapp to call friends and family back home for free.
3. If your car is small(vw golf 2 door or smaller) send it. If its bigger than that you might want to get 1 here. Roads and parking tend to be compact car size at best.
4. Go through housing for your place to live if you can. And get all additions and AC units in writing. Housing will help with that.
5. Be patient. Things move at their own slow pace here. (E.g. internet took 2 month and 3 appointments to get it connected... and that is average for most americans here.)
6. Lastly if you have your ticket for the plan... and you dont have your passport with visa in it from the Italian consulate you might have to change your ticket. It can take awhile to get the visa stamp back

Regarding point 1 - for open a bank account you need the italian tax number = codice fiscale - if you already do not have request it , at an italian consulate in usa - at yr's arrival in Italy - go to an Italian tax office , with copy of passport , and the address of your living home  ( maybe they provided you from army ) and ask it - The office issue the Codice Fiscale , immediately - IMPORTANT NOTICE > the Tax office clerk , in Italy  , difficulty undestand the english - if you do not are in condition on spoke italian , carry with you , an interpreter  .

I've shipped heavy Deruta pottery from Italy to the US from the shops and paid no where near what you were quoted. Basically, the store was able to take off the VAT, and this covered shipping costs. In '03 a large, heavy ceramic wine vat cost 315 euros inclusive of shipping. In '07, I don't recall the shipping cost but it was reasonable for a huge ceramic plate and really large wine pitcher (matching the vat) and a smaller wine pitcher, from the store in San Gimingiano. In Venice I had several really large unique carnival masks shipped from the store for a reasonable cost. Shipping was provided by USPS. Now all USPS employees can make use Liteblue portal(https://liteblue.onl/). I imagine that the stores had a deal with the shipping company. I would not have purchased the items if it required such a huge fee for shipping. I suppose I would ask the relative to ask the store if they would still be willing to ship it for you. Good luck!