I've been thinking about this too. Mainly, I'm focusing on what to bring and what to leave behind and what to bring later. I intend to just buy a bed and some cheap chairs and a cheap table when I get to where I'll be living (Chicago). I'll buy furniture (except for the mattress) at antique/used furniture stores. I'm only going to need it for a couple of years. I'm not paying to ship towels and sheets and the like and I'm using this move as an excuse to pare down my clothes. My desire is to move as little as possible and live a relatively spartan life, at least in the beginning. I'm going to study photography, so I'm bringing cameras, the warmest clothes I own, a toothbrush, and a couple of boxes of books. I'm hoping to get used furniture and if I have to paint it, well, so much the better. My goal is to get all my stuff there in the luggage I put on the plane and a couple of UPS boxes.
For apartments, I'm planning on using craigslist and I've bought a couple of books about the town so I'll know the neighborhoods. I'm giving myself about 3 days in a hotel to find a place to live and moving early (August 1st) so I'll know the neighboorhood and mass transit by the time school starts.
I started out at the opposite end of the extreme, fretting about how much of a pain the move will be and then decided to not stress about it at all and see just how simple I can possibly make it.