We have shipped a van to South America and back in 2018. We looked at shipping a van to South Africa for 2020 however fortunately bought a rig locally in South Africa in late 2019 that we were unable to do the 2020 trip due to worldwide covid restrictions. Fortunately again we had our South Africa truck in storage and did get to do our planned 2020 trip in 2022.
Shipping charges in 2018 almost to any major port worldwide was on average around $2,500 usd each leg/trip including port charges. Since covid prices are up; seems to be in the neighborhood of $4,500 usd just to get your vehicle to a continent. Once there you need to find local insurance and perhaps storage, there are time limits for temporary import permits that can result in bad things from fines to confiscation of vehicle should you over stay your permit time.
Given the change in shipping costs for Africa buying and selling a vehicle locally proved to be a very smart choice especially the way things worked out due to covid. You can do a lot of repairs for $10K (in/out shipping). Shipping is the easy part, you have to get your vehicle out of any port usually within 3-4 business days of the vehicle arriving otherwise you start accruing port storage charges of around $100-$150 day for the privilege of leaving the vehicle in the port. Sometimes you can get these charges waived if the shipping company wants to ship your vehicle earlier (room on a ship earlier) however the security of your vehicle at the port may be subject to theft from the vehicle. Generally fine but stuff does go missing while a vehicle is in transit depending on where the vehicle is going.
We have met people who have bought and sold vehicles locally as they travel the world and that has become our preferred option. You can also rent a vehicle from private parties or from small outfits often at a fraction of the cost of the mainstream companies. Our Africa experience only reinforced that our new way of travelling is the way to go. If you have a local vehicle parts are often easier to locate, it runs on the local fuel (no low sulphur diesel in most of Africa or South America). To ship a vehicle into some countries it must be pristine clean with zero dirt (Australia and New Zealand).
So yes shipping a vehicle is an option but there are many considerations that have to be worked through. We are frugal world travellers and are traveling comfortably but try to stretch our travel dollars as far as possible. The increase in shipping costs since covid has opened up other options for us anyway.
__________________
Ken
_____________________________________________
2021 Ford Transit AWD ‘Iron Horse’
Formerly - 2007 Pleasure Way Plateau (06 Sprinter T1N), 1992 VW Eurovan Westfalia Hightop
Long ago - 1969 VW Westfalia & 1973 GMC Motorhome
|
Linear Mode
