You DO NOT NEED a Carnet for North or South America, or Europe.

You DO NEED a carnet for Africa and Asia.

You CAN USE a carnet for Australia and NZ.

You CAN USE a carnet for South America. BUT you do NOT NEED IT!

See the Carnet page, link on left.

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Grant Johnson

Seek, and ye shall find.
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One world, Two wheels.
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

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Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
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Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Sorry to argue with you Grant but you do NEED a carnet (or cash bond at customs) to bring a bike in to Australia

From the Aus Customs website (importing a motor vehicle)

Concessions for tourists and temporary residents

As a tourist or temporary resident, you may bring a motor vehicle or a motorcycle and attached trailer or a caravan to Australia for a period of up to 12 months (or longer under certain circumstances) without paying duty on them, provided they are subsequently exported from Australia.
For this concession to apply, you will need one of the following:

• a Carnet De Passages en Douanes issued by an overseas organisation which has a reciprocal arrangement with the Australian Automobile Association, or
• a cash or bank security, equal to the amount of duty and GST and, where applicable, LCT otherwise payable.

If your vehicle is stolen, damaged or destroyed whilst you are in Australia you should notify Customs as soon as possible at your original port of arrival.
All fittings and accessories imported with your motor vehicle, motorcycle, trailer or caravan must also be exported with that same vehicle.

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2000 Africa Twin
http://two-up-ona-twin.blogspot.com

last year I managed to spend 7 months riding trough Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and back to my hometown in Argentina with a budget of U$s3000. Mostly camping, but not much cooking, not a single dollar spent in spare parts. The bike (jawa 350) had no issues al all.
So with $30.000 you should be able to spend a really long time in the road.
Good luck and just choose a simple and reliable bike.

america en jawa 350

My wife and I on our 1150GS traveled from South Africa (Cape Town) to United Arab Emirates (Dubai) in nine months, 28,000km. It cost us ZAR40,000 ($5500) 2 years ago. Camping and cheap hotels all the way. We funded this trip by selling all our posesions, except the bike, and decided to go and explore the world by traveling and finding jobs on the way. My first job was a 3 month contract in Malawi, wife did some volentry (free) work at a local church in Blantyre.
We are planning and saving up for our second leg of our RTW any time from next year shipping our GS to USA or Canada, drive to Alaska and down to Argentina (10 - 12 months), from where we will ship and fly to Oz, and tour NZ and Oz for 4-6 months.Our budget is similar to yours, $35,000.
When we run low on money, or out of money it is time to find a job (like we've done in Dubai) or go back home (South Africa for us).

Maurizio is right, it's all to do with your attitude, rather than your budget. The lower the budget, the more interesting the adventure!

Happy travels.

Johan & Charmaine

Funklab, it looks like you're about a week away from heading off!! Excellent move to head out sooner rather than later. You probably won't regret it. Good luck, you'll probably pass me going through S. America. I go slow. $30,000 could probably last me almost three years and I'm in an old Chevy van, and you know how much petrol they consume! The trick in my case is to hang out longer in places so as to not use so much gas. I'll probably be in Equador a while if I can find great camping because gas is only $1.48 a gallon and food is cheap. We'll see. Don't like planning too far ahead, who knows what life will toss in front of me. ;-)
Lorraine

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Rallying for A Wild Life — THE FILM!
http://igg.me/at/AWildLife

www.LorraineChittock.com
www.facebook.com/lorraine.chittock

I've got the same problem.
We're planning a 2 person trip with 2 bikes to fly from Aussie to Chilli and drive around SA to NA and hopefully fly the whole lot back to Oz from San Fran.

I've come up with this budget and would love to get some feedback:

[all prices are Aussie dollars which currently trades at 1 US$ - 1.21 AU$]

flying bikes there and back: 10000
flights ourselves there and back: 5800
crossing Darien: 3000
ferry to Baja: 600
nice hotel and a good night out (or 2) in Vegas [gotta do it]: 750
general personal items: 500 [one of us is female]
Spanish course in the UK: 900
sleeping: (4 night/ week average at 40/night): 4200
eating: 5500
oil changes: 200
international driving permit: 60
travel insurance: 1600
petrol: 3000 (21km/litre for 2 x 23000 km)

Totals nearly : 40000 aussie which is nearly US$ 36000 or US$15k each.

Am I losing it?

We've done a trip from Dublin to Vladivostok before and suffered the soviet overpriced accomodation more than we wanted. We camped more that 3 nights a week, but I like to have a margin. Just in case shipping out of San Fran will drag out and we end up staying in an expensive city longer than we thought.
It's our experience that hanging out in a place (depending on the place) cost more than riding a distance you would have riden anyway. We're not very good at chilling anyway. That's probably why.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com