Tortuga Has Stopped Shipping Internationally (For Now)

Published October 15, 2020

Written by:

Fred Perrotta
Fred Perrotta
Fred Perrotta

Fred Perrotta is the co-founder and CEO of Tortuga. His first backpacking trip to Europe inspired him to start the...

Edited by:

Headshot of Jeremy Michael Cohen
Jeremy Michael Cohen
Headshot of Jeremy Michael Cohen

Jeremy Michael Cohen is a co-founder of Tortuga. He also works as a screenwriter and director. Aside from travel and...

Woman sitting on fountain with backpack

The Tortuga Promise

At Tortuga, our mission is to make travel easier. Our advice and recommendations are based on years of travel experience. We only recommend products that we use on our own travels.

Tortuga products are not currently available outside of the US. We plan to re-launch in other regions when we can provide a great experience with prices in local currencies, free shipping, and no duties. We will honor return policies and warranties on all previous purchases.

If you want to be alerted when we re-launch in your country, sign up here.

The Problem

 As a travel company, our customers live—and travel—all over the world.

When we first launched, we used Amazon’s fulfillment centers, which wouldn’t ship our “oversized” packages outside of the US. Later, we switched to a third-party fulfillment center and began shipping to Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia.

Our vision is to be a global brand. While we can ship internationally, we’ve never served our international customers as well as our American ones.

If you’ve ever bought a Tortuga and shipped it outside of the US, you’ve had to deal with expensive shipping fees—despite our absorbing some of the cost—and high customs fees and taxes levied by your home country. Customs offices and post offices hold packages until you show up in person to pay.

This is not the easy, efficient shopping experience that you deserve.

What We’re Doing About It

One of our core values is to Prioritize the Customer.

We want to provide you with great products and service. But we can’t do that if we’re storing our products in and shipping them from the US.

As a small business, we don’t yet have the volume or expertise to serve international markets well. We are actively planning for and working on this problem. However, we do not yet have a timeline for international fulfillment.

In the meantime, you can use a freight forwarder for forwarding Tortuga outside of the US.

At Tortuga, we want to do things well or not at all.

International customers accounted for a minority of our sales but a significant portion of the people experiencing problems, including surprise customs fees and lost or late packages. Non-US customers were rightfully annoyed by extra costs and long shipping times.

We aren’t doing right by you at the moment. Our solution is to stop shipping internationally in the short-term until we can provide an experience equal to the one that we can provide to Americans right now. I understand if this decision is frustrating. It’s frustrating for us too, but we have to do what’s best for our customers in the long run.

For now, our last day shipping to internationally was Monday, December 31, 2018.

However, you can still use a freight forwarder to ship Tortuga backpacks to Europe. If you’ve already made a purchase from us, rest assured that we will honor our return policies and warranties for all European customers. I apologize for the short-term inconvenience. If you have any questions, please contact us. We look forward to re-launching in Europe and to showing you the level of service that we’re capable of.

If you want to be alerted when we re-launch in your country, sign up here.

Fred Perrotta

Fred Perrotta

Co-Founder, Tortuga

Fred Perrotta is the co-founder and CEO of Tortuga. His first backpacking trip to Europe inspired him to start the company. For over a decade, he’s traveled the world from his home base in the Bay Area while working remotely. When he’s on the road, Fred enjoys both walking and eating as much as possible.

Read more from Fred

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