Leaving bikes in S. Korea for onward bikeless round trip of Japan?
 

He folks,

We will be doing the usual old Trans-Russian trip that will have us finish in Vladivostok at some point around mid-July/early August... Take the Dream Ferry to South Korea... whatever, you have heard it all before.

The NEW question is since we don't really want to shell out for a pair of £1000 Carnets just to visit Japan by bike, we are looking into the possibility of leaving the bikes at a long stay car park in Seoul (Airport maybe) and flying out to Japan without the bikes and do maybe 2 weeks just using public transport/hostels etc... Maybe rent a car/bikes for a week.

But the question is, can we enter South Korea with the bikes at the land border at Busan, and then fly out of Seoul Aiprort with no bikes? Would that get flagged? How about returning to SK for a second time? Would that raise any suspicions?

The plan would then be to get the bikes from Seoul to Anchorage or Vancouver.

We are UK/South Africans Citizens and do not require Visas for South Korea.

I can't imagine there would be any problem there. You'll do import processing of the bike coming into and Korea and again when you leave with the bike - but I really don't think there's any kind of paperwork link to the fact that you are temporarily flying out without a bike under your arm so to speak. I left my bike in Kyrgyzstan last year and flew out no problems. But I'm sure there will be others with more accurate opinions.

Actually I'll be doing a very similar trip to yours and at around the same time. Leaving Kyrgyzstan in mid June. Proposing to arrive in Magadan mid to late July and to somehow get down to Vladivostok and to somehow get to S.Korea on that very overpriced ferry and to somehow get to Vancouver. Thats a lot of somehows :( The trip itself is not as complicated as trying to extricate myself out of Magadan!

Maybe catch you along the road :scooter:

Declan

Hey Declan. It would be awesome to meet up with you of you are en-route. We will be leaving Europe and heading Eastbound as of 11th May (Or there abouts) We have already extensively toured Europe and Turkey so really we will be making a B-Line straight for Kazakhstan. I imagine we will be there around Early-Mid June.

Am I right in surmising that Japan requires a Carnet, whereas South Korea does not?