Chicago → Chico. One Move Plan.

Chicago to Chico is a coast-to-coast move of roughly 2,100 miles, and Murdock’s Moving & Storage runs the entire route on our own DOT and CPUC authority. Because Chico is our home base, this is a road our drivers know intimately - and because we are an owner-operated carrier rather than a broker, the crew that loads you in the Chicago suburbs is the same crew that carries your keys up the walk in Butte County. Your household goods travel on one truck, loaded a single time. Nothing is transferred to a national van line, warehoused across three states, or combined with another family's shipment.

The drive follows I-80 west out of Chicago, straight across Iowa and Nebraska past Omaha, over the Wyoming high plains and through Salt Lake City, then down the eastern Sierra past Reno and over Donner Summit into Sacramento. From the capital we swing north on I-5 and CA-99 up the Sacramento Valley into Chico. Figure about 30 to 31 hours of actual driving, which with loading, federally required rest, and the mountain crossing works out to roughly five to eight days door to door. We quote a flat rate before the truck leaves Illinois, so the number you agree to in Chicago is the number that stands when we unload in Chico.

Chico is the classic Northern California college town, built around California State University, Chico and the sprawling 3,600-plus acres of Bidwell Park - one of the largest municipal parks in the country, threaded with swimming holes, oak groves, and trails that climb into the foothills. Downtown is genuinely walkable, with tree-lined streets, independent bookstores and breweries, a farmers market, and a low-key pace that feels a world away from the Loop. For a Chicago transplant, the appeal is a small-city lifestyle where your money goes far, the outdoors are at your doorstep, and you can still get a real downtown, a university calendar, and a live-music scene.

The city and surrounding Butte County have spent recent years rebuilding and welcoming newcomers in the wake of regional wildfires, and that has kept Chico both affordable relative to the coast and community-minded. People moving here land in the leafy Avenues near campus, in established neighborhoods like California Park and the foothill edges toward upper Bidwell, or in nearby Durham and the recovering town of Paradise up the ridge. A move into Chico often means a bungalow near downtown, a family home on a quiet cul-de-sac, or a place with a little foothill acreage - and our crews handle all of it, including the narrow older streets around the university.

Set at the northern end of the Sacramento Valley where the flatland meets the Sierra foothills, Chico gives you olive and almond orchards, quick access to Lassen Volcanic National Park and the Feather River country, and a genuine sense of seasons without the Midwest extremes. It is the right fit for Chicagoans who want less traffic, more space, and a town where the outdoors is the main event.