yeah it’s a major pain. and my move from NYC to NJ was barely over 50 miles. the main hassle was getting the stuff down using the elevator because my building didn’t allow moving at nights or weekends and superintendent was a mexican who hated me and was very strict about the rules.
the next problem was that NYC banned trucks on most of the streets and roads you would normally use so you had to take special truck routes using a special app for truck drivers.
end even after that trucks apparently have separate speed limits, lower than that for passenger vehicles and also can’t use all lanes etc. the app showed that stuff but it was annoying to go slow, not that going fast in a truck or van was a pleasure either ( loud banging on smallest of road imperfections ).
i suppose trucks are better when it comes to noise than vans. in a van the entire thing resonates. in a truck your cabin is mostly sound insulated. but the problem with trucks is often the seat doesn’t go back far enough compared to a van. also there was a very narrow old bridge i didn’t like taking in a wide U-Haul truck and preferred using a van for.
vans also drive more sporty than trucks do. of course that depends on what you put in a van but i was never able to load one up to the point where it would drive like a truck. there are also some vans that have a second row of seats but still set up for cargo in the back, called “crew van”
( the sliding door window in a crew van is heavily tinted so you can hide the cargo but still see outside )
these will allow you to move your entire family as well as some cargo at the same time. can be handy on short trips like from NYC to NJ. you can’t get them from U-Haul but i rented a Mercedes Sprinter Turbo-Diesel van equipped like this a few times though the rental company that had them was in downtown so quite a bit further than U-Haul.
another thing to note about Sprinter is it is very narrow, because it’s built for narrow European streets. the sprinter is narrow and tall. the Ford van seems wider and not as tall. both drive well with Mercedes being just slightly better driving IMO. but both drive WAY better than a truck, or than those old GMC vans. either the V6 turbo-diesel Sprinter or the 10-speed automatic Ford Van both are zippy to the point where you can actually have fun driving them.
( no window in the sliding door on Ford above means it’s a cargo van, generally Mercedes seems a more common choice for passenger and crew vans due to it being slightly smoother ).
whether you get Mercedes or Ford i highly recommend finding one with a backup camera, because visibility in cargo vans is pretty horrible. not sure if U-Haul trucks even have backup camera as option. may want to travel the road in some other car first before driving a U-Haul truck there.
anyway, really the challenge was to get out of the apartment building and then get out of NYC. once you were out you were basically home ( an hour of smooth sailing later ).
getting out of NYC apartment is like some kind of extraction game like Escape from Tarkov LOL