Portland → Chico. One Move Plan.

The move from Portland to Chico is a straight southbound run down Interstate 5, roughly 425 miles that our crews cover in about six and a half to seven hours of driving. We roll out of the Portland metro on I-5, drop through the Willamette Valley past Salem and Eugene, then climb the Siskiyou Summit at the Oregon-California line before descending toward Redding. From Redding we cut southeast on CA-99 and CA-32 into Chico. Because Murdock’s Moving is an owner-operated carrier with our own DOT and CPUC authority, the same truck and the same crew that load your home in Portland are the ones who unload it in Chico. Your shipment is never handed to a broker, transferred to a line-haul carrier, or consolidated with strangers' furniture.

The Siskiyous are the one stretch worth planning around: the pass tops out over 4,300 feet and can see snow and chain controls well into spring, so we time departures to daylight and clear windows and pad the schedule when weather calls for it. On a standard run we complete the Portland-to-Chico haul in two to three days door to door, which leaves room for a same-day or next-morning delivery window you can actually count on. You get one point of contact, a flat-rate price agreed up front, and a crew that knows the route rather than a rotating cast of subcontractors.

Chico is Northern California's classic college town, built around California State University, Chico and the tree-shaded grid of a genuinely walkable downtown. If you are coming from Portland's density and price tags, the trade feels familiar in the best ways: a bike-friendly core, farmers markets, a strong independent-restaurant and craft-beer scene (Sierra Nevada Brewing calls Chico home), and Bidwell Park, one of the largest municipal parks in the country, threading Big Chico Creek right through town for swimming holes, trails, and shade. The pace is slower and the summers are hotter, but the housing math is dramatically friendlier than what Portland residents have gotten used to.

Most newcomers land in neighborhoods like The Avenues near campus, the leafy streets around Bidwell Park, the newer subdivisions off East Avenue and in north Chico, or nearby Durham and the foothill edges toward Paradise. The 2018 Camp Fire reshaped this part of Butte County, and Chico absorbed much of the recovery and rebuilding, so you will find a community that is both deeply rooted and actively growing. A move here usually means more square footage, a yard, and a garage for the price of a Portland condo. Our crews handle the last-mile realities of Chico moves every week, from second-floor student apartments near campus to single-story ranch homes out toward the foothills.