After South America-where?
 

I am already planning to ride North, Central, and South America in few years and I am now building my harley for Round The World trip. I am saving up $ and I have plenty of 'credit' on my credit card for real serious emergency use only and have a stable month to month income to continue my traveling.

I am not a luxury traveler and will do a lot of camping, mostly stealth camping. Hostel when need to or have to. So clearly traveling frugally as possible is the plan.

At this point, trying to contemplate where I should go after South America? Originally, my plan is to find a cheap ship from Panama to Colombia and ride through west side down to Ushuaia before going up north to Brazil/Venezuela before shipping bike.

Looking at map, it seems logically that shipping from Brazil or Venezuela to Africa might be cheaper than elsewhere? Or is it cheaper to ship from S.America to Europe? Or S.America to Asia country or Australia? And what type of USD amount am I looking at? I might have a riding partner with me if combing cargo will minimize the cost of shipping?

Any helpful tip is appreciated. Oh yeah, if it is cheaper to ship from Chile or west side of S.America to Asia country then most likely I will ride through Brazil down to Ushuaia before making my way up on west side of S.America. Whatever it takes to change the plan so I can explore wisely and frugally.

I'm leaving for South America this October and have been thinking about the same thing. If I don't return to the US after the trip (depending on time and money), I'd like to go ride South East Asia. I've only gotten one quote so far and it was a lot.. ~$2000 USD just for the bike from Cartagena, Columbia to Singapore.

Hi Moto Mikey,

Thanks for sharing that information and considering the distance from Colombia to Singapore I think that price is reasonable considered when you compare to the cost of crossing the Gap? Have you tried checking on price from Santiago, Chile? I noticed that few sidecar owners use that location because it is cheaper?

So I will assume you plan to do a round trip around S.America and return to Colombia before shipping the bike? (of course assuming your budget permit)

And look at bright side, Asian country is supposedly to be cheap so if you have a steady income, you could travel slowly out there to recoup some of that $2k shipping cost? :thumbup1:

Moto Mikey,

Please check this thread ASAP! I figured you might want to know this prior to shipping your bike to Singapore??

Shipping to Singapore is difficult and cost is 'prohibitive'.

$2k Colombia to Singapore sounds reasonable. (But beware the costs at the receiving end, particularly if sending by sea!)

By sea, send to Port Klang Malaysia, seems easier than Singapore. And by air, send to Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. But note, you might need the carnet to send to Malaysia. For Thailand, you don´t.

SE Asia is generally quite cheap to travel compared to many other areas.

To keep the most amount of riding with minimal shipping costs, from SAmerica, ship to Durban, SA, ride North to Europe - when you get bored head East and get to Asia that way, then ship from South Korea back to North America - or sell the bike in Asia.....

How to obtain carnet? Do I get it here in the USA before departing or ? I understand that it is "merchandise passport" to help from paying too much taxes when crossing countries?

My plan is to travel Europe last because it is expensive country and I don't want to run out of money fast. Traveling in cheap country first is ideal for me so is Africa cheap or expensive? Yes I plan to travel frugally as possible. And it was my goal to travel Europe last and more importantly England is the final destination prior to returning to USA because I am 4th generation since my family moved to USA.

For carnet, contact the Automobile Association in your home country. If you want to do India, then you´re definitely going to need a carnet to get your bike there. Most likely gonna need it for Pakistan, Indonesia or Australia as well.

About carnet, on this very site:
Paperwork | Horizons Unlimited

Regarding costs in different areas, I think especially South and Southeast Asia will be considerably cheaper to travel than, say, Europe, North America or Australia. But how Central / South America or Africa compare to Asia these days, I´m unable to answer. Maybe someone with more recent experienve can help you on that.

But also remember, that it´s not exact science. Your own preferences will have a lot to do with how much you spend. Where do you sleep and eat. Do you go out a lot. What´s your riding distance in each country, multiplied by fuel costs in that country. Big cities and famous attractions can cost a lot anywhere. Also currencies will go up&down. Shipping the bike, it gets even harder to say beforehand, what are YOU gonna pay. There are many variables.

And there are also other factors to consider, when you plan a RTW-trip, like what are the best times of the year to visit an area, and to make a suitable routing, that´ll keep your shipping distances short, etc.

(Just my opinion, but I would not bother bringing camping gear to South or Southeast Asia.. that stuff takes up a lot of space, and cheap although basic accommodation is almost everywhere.)

Sounds like my best bet is to plan on doing North/Central/South America and enjoy the trip without any stress on being way too frugally to have $ for next trip immediately after I am done with S. America.

Instead, just enjoy the trip in Americas and return back to home then start plan and organize for other part of the world. That way I won't stress trying to plan for next country while traveling in S. America. And it would make more sense to start next trip from home after getting paperworks done especially with Carnet's time limit of 1 year, getting vaccine shots, if any, and so on then paper will be more fresh than 1 year old and probably get lost somewhere during the trip.

At least I have some idea on what to expect when preparing for the next trip after recuperate from America trip. And at this point it is probably better to defer the Africa until it becomes a little more stable.

Thanks for some feedback! Appreciate it!

Sounds like a good plan. Who says a RTW-trip must be done on one go?

(It is worth noting here, that you could probably have a new carnet, or renewed carnet, sent to you overseas by courier mail, so you don´t really have to make your plans around that one piece of paper. But there´s absolutely nothing wrong with doing one trip, returning home, relaxing a bit, and then planning and geting ready for the next one!)

If I had a blank paper, to plan my next trip after Americas, and it didn´t really matter, which way I went, because it´s all new, then I would probably head to Asia first. or maybe it will turn out, that for practical reasons, you´ll need to ship your bike to Europe first, and Europe (as well as some parts of Asia adjacent to it), are more expensive, but you could get through those areas quite fast, if you like. So in the context of a RTW-trip, that should not ruin your budget. Or even if you decided to spend a bit of time in Europe, staying the majority of that trip in cheaper parts of Asia should balance that out nicely. Just my 0.02, of course.

You can't get a carnet issued in the United States, you will have to go to Canada to the Canadian Automobile Association to get it.

Have you ever toured around Australia? If you like camping, you could easily spend months circling around the entire continent with trip to the interior and Tasmania.