Lead time for visas and vehicle transport
 

For visas and booking a sea container for travel from Australia to North Asia, Russia and Mongolia, how much time should I allow for things to run smoothly and have the visa before I pack the truck into the container? Chris

Ho ho ho..

6 months. As a guess. You need to contact the embasiess .. and the shipping companies .. ASAP. You'll get cloes to the truth with the embassies.. double the times and cost that the shipping companies tell you over the phone.

I tried to organise a Russian visa in December for a trip in June and was told that "invites" are valid only for 45 days prior to the date of entry you want on the visa - unless you want the multi entry 12 month visa, and then you need AIDs tests. Use the waytorussia.net website for good visa advice and invites.

I initially used onlinevisa.ru and had to do a credit card chargeback as they did not reply or provide any responses back in December.

On the carnet (if you need one) ..

It will take about 1 week to organise a Bank Guarantee (if you go that way)

And another 2 weeks to do the carnet it self ..
You can do this before the start of the trip and have it dated for when you start the trip.


(the time I did this before .. well it was over the counter in London .. did the green card etc all in one day .. times have changed .. not for the better)