Keeping them dry and out of sunlight should be your priority. I don't think you'll have much to worry about with them in the rubbermaid containers and the U-haul other than the off chance you drive through a flood. If you're still feeling like that isn't enough protection, wrap the rubbermaid containers in a tarp to help with water.

As to heat and humidity I don't believe there's much (cheaply, anyway) you can do. It is only 3 days and if you have papers that are that delicate then you may need to invest in something a bit more sophisticated.

I would be more worried about theft on a trip like that. :D

If you have two months to go, I'd consider scanning the documents and sending them to myself using a Gmail account.

Ah, thanks for the info. Nothing's about to disintegrate, so it should be okay. And Mark, believe me, there's nothing I'd like better than to scan everything (and great idea on the gmail), but I've got a full two month's worth of work to do even without any scanning. Plus my scanner is not the most convenient thing to use anyway.

Theft... hmm, I've thought a little about it, but not much. I guess one solution is stay at a few expensive hotels that have locked garages I can park in?
One thing I'm for sure going to do is to move my computer and my backup hard drive separately, so if there's a catastrophe (flood, fire, theft, etc.), they aren't both lost. Maybe I'll Fedex the backup HD and take the computer phsyically with me in the U-Haul.

Re: keeping things dry

I would totally suggest Space Bags. They're plastic bags available in different sizes that you vaccuum out all the air. These are essentially like large ziploc bags and they might be more cost-effective in the end

Maybe this could help: when I pack books in a suitcase, I wrap them in cling film. Keeps them from opening and getting all wrinkled and protects them from spills. I guess you could do stashes of papers and wrap them tightly in cling film and then put them into the plastic boxes. You can bundle papers together according to subject and since the film is transparent you know what's in each bundle. You can get a giant roll of cling film in Sam's Club or a similar store.

Ha ha ha! Coming to the big UIUC, eh? :) You'll love the corn... and if you stand on a mole-hill you can see 26.5 miles to the horizon. ;)

He he he...

When I moved from LA to DC recently, I went and scanned all of my important documents (tax forms, everything) at least so that I would have a second record. It's a daunting task when you start from scratch, but updating once a year at tax time isn't too bad.

I keep my archive files in crates, which are not sealed or anything, but I wrapped them in tarps which seems to work fine to keep them dry. As someone else suggested, unless you're flooded under you don't need the papers to be airtight. I have movers take most of my stuff, but I loaded my car with the important docs and pictures that were irreplaceable.

I would suggest that if you are going to make a backup copy of things, send the backup copy ahead to someone you know for safekeeping. They can verify that it's OK and then you don't have to worry about the backup during the move. I'm actually a big fan of sending a backup to someone you trust who lives in a different area (parents or other relative perhaps).