Our international students share some of the things you don’t need to bring with you when you move to the UK for university.
Mi Chelle, 1st Year English student, Malaysia
- Cooking utensils: Things like pots, pans and cutlery. Also, if you’re someone who likes using a rice cooker or multi-cooker, you can get one when you arrive in the UK.
- Bedsheets, pillows and duvets: There are many stores in York that sell these, including the shops on campus.
Yara, 3rd Year Law student, Jordan
- Winter clothes: I’m from a hot country, and the UK is anything but a “hot country” so coming to university I thought I needed to stock up on so many winter clothes – but I didn’t! You can find better-equipped winter clothes and jackets here rather than waste all your luggage space on fluffy winter clothes!
- Cutlery and utensils: Moving to a different country entails that you get your own cutlery and utensils, but just buy these things from here. They’re very cheap (cheaper than in my home country, at least!) and it saves you the hassle of having to carry heavy things all around.
- Linen: Additionally, some people bring towels, bedsheets, pillow sheets etc.. with them. But there’s absolutely no point in doing that! Something that I LOVE about living in the UK is the fact that you can go to one supermarket and find literally everything you need! So this includes buying a really good quality (but reasonably priced) duvet, bedsheets, towels etc… There’s no point in transporting all these things abroad and wasting loads of space!
Yuqiao, 3rd Year Politics with International Relations student, China
- Bedding: You don’t need to bring your pillows, blankets.
- Kitchen stuff: You also don’t need to bring things like, kettles or other cooking devices and utensils. You can buy all of them when you arrive and they aren’t expensive.
Saranporn, MA Applied Linguistics in English Language Teaching, Thailand
- Clothes: You don’t have to bring lots of clothes. York has a convenient shopping area.
- Printer: You can use printers on campus such as in the library.
- Books: There are a number of books available both in the library and on online resources. You can use your student email to get a free 6-month AMAZON PRIME membership on, an online shopping website where you can use their one-day delivery service.
Dilys, LLM International Corporate and Commercial Law, Ghana
- Household items: York has amazing stores, which have many household items ranging from the kitchen to the bedroom and the prices are definitely not exorbitant! I could not emphasise this enough. So allow your suitcases to be filled with lots of memories from your home country, such as precious artefacts, clothing and items from friends and family.
- Stationery sets: Do not be worried if you are not able to organise items for classroom work or activities (I understand it makes you feel very prepared for lectures #NewMe, NewGoals#AceMyGrades…can relate!). However, there are many stores such as The Works, Claire’s, Smiggle and the Office outlet in York. They all have a variety of stationery supplies to fit your style of learning.
Maria, MA Post War Recovery Studies, Colombia
All your clothes: Don’t bring too much!! One of the mistakes that I made when moving to York was to bring two big suitcases and one backpack! This is something really inconvenient and you will realize that when you find yourself alone trying to pull 50 kilograms of clothes across the airport or across the University! My mistake was thinking that I should bring all my jackets, dresses and shoes, to save money on clothes. My plan did not go well… I ended up buying three jackets in York (among other things) because mine were not suitable for winter. Also, you really will find amazing sales!
It is just impossible to bring enough clothes for one year for all the seasons, so try to bring some of your favourite outfits for each one and plan a budget to buy the rest here! (You will buy some anyway, doesn’t matter if you bring your entire wardrobe!) If I suffered a little bit bringing my two suitcases to York… imagine how is going to be when I have to return with that, plus the things I got during my year here!
Manxin, 2nd Year Education student, China
- Daily necessities: Such as bedding and kettle.
- Some special goods in your country: For example, I brought Chinese traditional chilli sauce and an electric cooker. But I realized that it’s not necessary as I can buy them at the Chinese supermarket in York.
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