Thread: Anyone taken their pride and joy (ie. Land Rover) on a holiday ... overseas?

I was recently involved with a charity motorcycle ride in Indochina - we shipped the bikes over from here. Europe will have its own issues, but in general its not that hard depending on how determined you are - some points:

1. You'll need a Carnet Du Passage - basically paperwork saying you will not sell the car (or any other item of value) whilst in that country. They are a bit of a pain to manage and must be checked at each border crossing (not sure about the EU?) to make sure you still have all the items on the Carnet.

2. Insurance was impossible for us - YMMV with a car and being in Europe though. It certainly wont be cheap.

3. The bikes are not back yet, but plan for a real bun-fight with AQIS. You cannot have any dirt, seeds, plant matter, blood etc... on anything coming back to Oz (fair enough too). I've had canvas seats cut off vehicles when coming back into Oz before.

It does sound like an excellent idea though - what a great adventure. Although its about motorbikes, I recommend you have a look at this site Horizons Unlimited - THE Motorcycle Travel site its all about travelling the world on bikes, so a lot of the administrative issues will be the same.

I thought the bum had dropped out of the economy in Iceland and everything was super cheap now?

Cheers,

Adam

PS - I didnt arrange any of the trip to Indochina, but my mates did. If you like, PM me and I'll put you in touch - they know all about shipping vehicles overseas now!

Cheers for that Adam!

Originally Posted by akelly

I thought the bum had dropped out of the economy in Iceland and everything was super cheap now?

That's what I thought! Looks like they're trying to get visitors to pay them out of their insolvency. Everything tourism/hospitality is denominated in Euros now (even though they're not a Euro country), adjusted for pre-GFC exchange rates. And the excuse for the steep car rental prices I was given is that they can't get finance. Despite all that, it's a fantastic place to visit. This will be my 2nd trip. I've done the ring road in a little car a couple of years back. To do anything interesting though you'll need a 4x4.

G'day slt

Why not buy a vehicle in UK then do Iceland and store it for later in 2011 the sell it before your return


cheers

Originally Posted by UncleHo

G'day slt

Why not buy a vehicle in UK then do Iceland and store it for later in 2011 the sell it before your return


cheers

Exactly what i would suggest, you can often pickup LHD vehicles in the UK for less than a RHD vehicle and they will be fairly cheap there, shipping will likely cost more than 5k return and theft of parts and accessories is common .

Yeah, but its not the same as taking your own vehicle somewhere cool, bringing it home and saying calmly to your mates: "yeah, drove up to Iceland in the landy a few years back, it was OK - but we had to keep recovering landcruisers over there too".

We had lots of suggestions about hiring bikes overseas, or buying them etc... In the end, you know what you have and you trust it - flying off to another country, buying a used car and setting off on a big trip is usually the start of a story that ends with "and then we couldn't get bugger all for it at the other end", or "and the bloody thing broke down/caught fire/got stolen".

I reckon if you understand the risks, know the costs and want to do it - plan it properly and bloody go for it, take heaps of pics and make us all jealous when you get home.

Cheers,

Adam

Getting it back into OZ will be a BIG issue because of AQIS, based on our experience when we shipped a load of furniture back into Oz, they were totally ridiculous in their requirements.
With a vehicle, for a start, no matter how spotless the vehicle is, they WILL insist you have it cleaned by their contractor and I'll be surprised if you get out of that alone for less than $1000. If you whinge, they'll become very obstructionist.
Insurance will also be impossibly expensive.
The Carnet thing has to cover every single country you will enter, which means you have to deal with the bureaucracy in every single country and get everything approved in writing BEFORE you leave Oz. It could take a year to organize, in the worst case.
In some countries the bureaucrats will definitely stuff you around unbelievably. Some will want money under the table.
If it was me, I'd just buy a clunker in Britain, flog it around and then sell it before coming back. Old Landys are dirt cheap there.

Hi All

Having worked for a company bringing in defence vehicles from timor and other stuff from other places i can give you a bit of a heads up on vehicle cleaning requirements.

The seats are hard if they somehow get dirt and seeds through the fabric which is what they afraid of then the seats have to go, if the inspection is done properly then they will want any holes back flushed, the inner panels off, the wiring loom loosened to the point that they can see no dirt anywhere, usually the lights out, any sound absorption material that can hide seeds cleaned or removed or both the wheels off and if drum brakes then they have to be checked too, and velcro is the enemy of AQIS and absolutely no dirt or grease usually the air filters get tossed and radiators that have grass seed in them are a real pain as are brown rust spots cause they look like dirt and mud when wet.

If your vehicle isnt at this point when it gets here then you will probably have to pay contractors to get it to that point. The cheapest way is to have it clean and dismantled before it gets here usually but the adf stuff usually has a really good going over in Timor for days and weeks and we still had to spend hours or days on them to get them through AQIS here.

Hope this helps

Regards Mark

Originally Posted by UncleHo

G'day slt

Why not buy a vehicle in UK then do Iceland and store it for later in 2011 the sell it before your return


cheers

Why not buy one and bring it back

Heeps of defers over there mate