Moving from Indianapolis to Reno

Indianapolis sits at 719 feet and the O'Brien's warehouse in Sparks sits at 4,437 feet, so a household leaving central Indiana ends up a little over 3,700 feet higher. The straight-line gap is about 1,778 miles; the roads add roughly 280 more. This page walks the road first and then the Reno end.

The road: I-74, then I-80 nearly all the way

The printed route leaves Indiana on Interstate 74 for about 193 miles, adds a 14-mile stretch of I-474, and then runs on I-80 for 1,836 miles, with a last 2 miles of I-15. Nearly nine of every ten miles are one road. That is good news for planning, because one highway means one family of road-condition sites to watch and few decisions to make along the way.

I-80 is the long spine across the middle of the country and into Nevada. For a loaded trailer the weather that matters most is on the western half, where high-plains wind and winter storms can slow or stop truck traffic for a day. Before a winter departure, check each state's 511 site on the way and the NDOT page for the Nevada end.

What 2,057 miles does to the schedule

The planning figure is five driving days at 500 miles a day, with about 35 hours of wheel time. A household goods shipment is not one truck racing the clock, though. Long-distance moves are priced by weight and scheduled through the carrier network around other shipments, so your written estimate sets the delivery window, and that window is the only date to plan around.

Because the route is one highway for most of its length, the main variable is the season, not the map. A July departure meets a hot, dry Nevada arrival. A January departure should expect extra days for snow on the plains and in the last stretch into the Sierra foothills.

Many families fly, ship the household with the Bekins network, and drive their own cars separately. The same 35 hours of driving is a long weekend for two drivers.

How the move works with O'Brien's

You book the move with O'Brien's, the Bekins Van Lines agent in Sparks. We coordinate the move from your Indianapolis address through the Bekins network, then handle delivery and unpacking in the Reno area. If the new home is not ready, your shipment can wait in our 30,000 square foot warehouse, and vault storage starts from $40 per month.

Start with a phone ballpark or the online request. Estimates are itemized and in writing. See how an interstate move works for the order of events.

Indianapolis and Reno compared

The Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metro has about 2.13 million people and a Census median home value of $265,900. The Reno metro has about 563,000 people and a median home value of $502,300. Median gross rent is $1,191 in Indianapolis and $1,592 in Reno, so size the new home with that gap in mind.

The climate shift is just as plain. Indianapolis averages a January high of 36.4 degrees, a July high of 85.2 and about 40.7 inches of precipitation a year. Reno's January high is 47.7 and its July high is 93.9, but it gets only 7.35 inches of precipitation a year. Furniture that has lived through humid Indiana summers can shrink slightly in dry Reno air, so check drawers and joints after the first few months.

County records show people move both ways between Marion County and Washoe County, which is all the Census margin of error lets anyone say.