Departing Turkey without my bike...
 

I am set to fly out of Turkey to Yemen in a couple of days and I am becoming increasing nervous that my prepaid flights will be wasted. The reason being is that I entered Turkey on my motorbike riding it from the UK. My passport has the motor vehicle stamp in it.

Now I am set to return to Turkey, but in 10 months time. Does anybody have any actual experience of leaving Turkey without your bike. The guys i've been chatting to have said that the bike must be in customs (10 Euro per day for 10 months!) or shipped back to the UK (1140 Euro) and my passport restamped saying that the bike is in customs or out of the country.

I don't have a carnet, I don't fancy the idea of reporting the bike stolen, and I don't fancy the idea of dumping it in Greece, which has also been suggested. I just want to leave my bike with some buddies here and then use it when I return in 10 months time. If you have any ideas or personal experience please could you drop me a line.

Thanks,

My experience is about 3-4 years old, but I left a bike in Turkey for a couple of months and flew out to Europe and back again.

No hassles with customs out or returning, but I was flying out of one of the smaller airports on the coast serviced by the charter companies. No idea whether that would make any difference compared to flying through one of the major aiports of Istanbul/Ankara.

Best of luck.

Hi MountainMan,

How did you go with this?

Im currently in Alanya, while I dont plan to leave the bike here, Im very interested to see how you got on..

Chris