Getting Out Of Australia
 

Greetings

Starting to gather information on shipping (plus a lot of other "stuff") ex Australia. I'm wide open to any suggestions (except for taxidermy or anything that involves insertion).

Looking for the cheapest method (of course) and happy to consider air / sea / hovercraft / tardis / why.

Ultimate destination? I don't have one as yet but intend to travel to as many places as possible before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

First thoughts are either

SE Asia -> India -> Middle East -> Africa -> Europe -> ??

or

Japan -> Russia -> Stans -> Europe -> ??

Planning to depart 2012/13 on a Wee Strom.

TIA

Nigel.

Cheapest method is by sea. The process is:

Decide on a location to ship to.
Contact half a dozen shipping firms to get best price.
Find a bike crate (ex-bike shop is best)
Pack bike into crate
Take crate to docks
Pay money to shipper
Obtain carnet from NRMA if required (depends on countries you are visiting)
Wait 4 weeks for ship to arrive at your chosen Asian destination
Pay local dock fees and local insurance
Remove bike from crate and reassemble
Ride bike out of docks and onto road to wherever. :biggrin3:

I've done it quite a number of times now - enjoy your journey.

^ excellent bits of advice right there!

If your destination(s) are fully open, I´d consider shipping with Perkins from Darwin to Dili (East Timor) first, and exploring Indonesia from there. I was planning to do just that a couple years ago, but political situation in E.Timor came in the way. Anyway, it seems to be a common route, and not too expensive either.

What I saw of Indonesia was so great, that for me it would be a logical #1 stop after I´d left Oz. Downside is you´ll need a carnet to enter Indo, but from there the road is open to Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, and they´re all extremely recommendable.

From then on it gets more difficult, but with a real thick wallet you could go to China, or you could ship from Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur (and probably many other places as well) by sea or by air to basically wherever you want. (If you want to go to India, do some research on whether you´ll send by sea or by air - for us, the prices were nearly the same 2,5 years ago, only the air-option was several weeks faster!)

It depends on your destination, that needs to be sorted out first, then you can decide how long you want to wait without a bike.

If you ship, you will be without for a month or more(maybe even up to 3 months depending on where it is going and how), if you fly, it can be arranged to land around the same time as you within a day or so. This will save your extra transport costs without a bike and maybe accomodation while waiting for it in a foreign country.

If you plan on Europe, I know beemerbird just flew her Vstrom650 to Frankfurt for a few grand and it was there within a day of her.

You still have plenty of time to plan, do a lot of reading of this site and decide which way and where first, then concentrate on the details after that.

For what it is worth, on my trip to the Americas last year, the dollar was SO low, I ended up buying a bike over there and selling it before I came home, a cheap solution for me as the cost of freight there and back would have been the same as the cost of the bike!

Cheers
TS