We pay for a service to maintain a mailing address separate from our home address, where the mail is intended to be available from wherever in the world we happen to be. We settled on physicaladdress.com for this service. Our mailbox is at their Laguna Beach location, as we wanted a California address.
We chose physicaladdress.com based on their operating model: they directly operate all of their locations. Many competing services offering virtual mailing services subcontract the actual postal handling to Mailboxes, Etc and similar franchises, where one's mailing address could become suddenly unavailable with no recourse if the franchise closes or moves. We wanted more surety than that, some of our documents would be difficult to redirect on short notice.
When letters or packages arrive, the envelope is scanned and an email notification sent.
One can choose to immediately shred the envelope without opening it, or open and scan the contents. Much of our correspondence is fine with just a scan to act on. The tier of service we use includes 30 envelopes per month, ten of which can be opened and scanned.
For documents where the original is important it can be forwarded. A recent example cost $0.76 to send the original letter sized envelope, delivered via USPS in a slightly oversized beige envelope. It arrived at our home in three days. In a nice touch, the sending address is our specific mailbox so any problems in delivery will be sent back where we can see what happened. They can forward mail anywhere in the world, with appropriate postage charges.
We've been using the service for a few months and are quite happy with it.