Trip Planning Information
Planning a multi-continent road trip takes a little more effort than your average weekend away, and if you’re thinking about doing one you quickly work out there’s no definitive resource on the topic. So in recognition of all the websites I gleaned information from, here’s my 2 cents worth into the pool of knowledge.
I’ll start with some of the ‘big picture’ issues on this page. When I get time I’ll also break it down into country by country on another page. OK here goes…
The idea:
Contrary to popular belief, the idea of driving to London wasn’t contrived while drunk. It happened during a completely sober chat with Simon on MSN messenger. He came up with the idea while thinking about going to work in London, like so many other Kiwis and Aussies (among other nationalities).
The theory is that during the 24 hours it takes to get to London, you eat plastic food, try to nap, and/or try to enjoy movies on a screen smaller than your mobile, all the time getting more and more frustrated watching the ‘kilometres to destination’ counter wind it’s way to zero. Meanwhile, barely 10 kilometres below, whole countries full of sights, cultures, people and experiences fly past. To you they are featureless expanses of greeny-grey (if you’re lucky enough to get a window seat), to them you are nothing. OK so that ended up sounding way more philosophical than I intended, but I’m gonna leave it in, as I think it’s important to keep in mind why you do this sort of trip. You have to have a sense of adventure, an open mind, and most importantly a desire to learn. Enough verbosity, on with the facts…
The route:
The original idea was to drive from Perth via Sydney to Darwin, take a freighter to Singapore, and drive through SE Asia then on to Bhutan, India and so on. This plan came unstuck when we realised we needed to get through either China or Myanmar (aka Burma). China would have been absolutely fascinating, but travelling across it in your own car is a bureaucratic nightmare and hellishly expensive. The key problem is that you have to book a guide from a government approved company who has to accompany you the whole way so you don’t stray into restricted areas or see anything they don’t want you to see. And of course you have to pay for the guide. These guys did it, as did these guys but it was too much hassle and too much money for us. The other option is to cross Myanmar, which is fine to fly into, but by all accounts the border areas are pretty dodgy.
So I’d read something about Chennai (the Indian city formerly known as Madras) being a big port city, so that’s where we started. By all accounts Chennai is much more relaxed than most Indian cities, so it seemed a good place to ease into the Indian way of doing things. Some German guys we met in Lahore started in Kolkata (Calcutta).
Other people who have gone the opposite direction have avoided Myanamar/China by shipping their vehicle from Kolkata to northern Malaysia, but it seemed like a lot more complexity for little gain.
After India/Nepal you can go NW through the former soviet states (the ‘Stans), but we weren’t keen on the disputed territories of Jammu/Kashmir so instead we headed west through Pakistan, then you have to go up through Iran, squeezed between the trouble areas of Afghanistan and Iraq.
From northern Iran you can head north through Armenia/Azerbaijan into Russia (another beaurocratic nightmare) or west through Turkey.
From Turkey the original plan was to keep as far east as we could without hitting the countries that needed painful visas (ie Russia, Ukraine and maybe more?) up to Latvia and/or Estonia before cutting across the top of Germany straight to London. This was based on the theory we can come back and do Western Europe any time we want, but Eastern Europe would be best tackled when we have our own vehicle, as well as the fact it’s much cheaper. As it turned out the plan swung towards spending more time in Western Europe, so we zig-zagged our way through Eastern Europe, the former Yugoslavia states and then Western Europe.
Early in the trip we were limited by the expiry of our visas, particularly for Iran, and then we were loosely constrained by the possibility of Anzac Day in Gallipoli (western Turkey). We’d also assigned an arbitrary date of early June as our arrival date in London, just so we didn’t blow it out too much (you could easily spend years doing the same trip). As it was, we didn’t get to London till mid July, but that was by consensus agreement when we had our last big planning effort in Budapest.
Here’s where we ended up going:
The vehicle:
The first question most people ask is why we didn’t just buy a vehicle in India, rather than spend all that money on shipping. The answer is three-fold:
Buying and registering a car in India sounds like hard work. But admittedly we didn’t actively investigate this!
Getting a Carnet (more on the Carnet later) was likely to be a hassle as well. It was also our opinion (unwarranted maybe) that crossing borders in an Indian vehicle was likely to attract more unwanted attention from the authorities than a vehicle from a ’safe’ country like Australia.
Lastly, we had know way of knowing if we could expect to buy a decent vehicle once we got there. The Indian car market is dominated by Tata and Mahindra. And frankly apart from the fact they are as ugly as sin, their mechanical reputation isn’t great, and there’s no way we were likely to get parts for them once we left the country. Toyotas and Land Rovers are rare. Vehicles aren’t actually that cheap in India. Also getting whatever vehicle we bought mechanically sound, and acquiring all the gear and spare parts we’d need before we left was just too much to face.
Long story short, it was all going to be way too hard!
So a lot of people who start overland trips in Europe go with Land Rovers. I can only put this down to thinking with you heart rather than with your head.
We pretty quickly settled on taking a Toyota. I’ve driven Toyota Land Cruisers in the mining industry for the last four years, thrashing them across untracked outback, along endless dirt roads, in freshly mined open pits, and through the depths of underground mines. Toyotas have earnt a great respect in the industry. Unfortunately Land Cruisers are bulky and expensive, two undesirable characteristics for a trip like this.
So the next best option was a dual-cab (4 door) 4WD Hilux. Hiluxes are well regarded back home in NZ, where they’re the workhorse of the farming industry. The other benefit is that wherever in the world there is conflict, you’re likely to see television coverage of AK-47 wielding soldiers/mercenaries/terrorists crowded into the back of a beat up Hilux. Hence, there’s likely to be parts for them everywhere.
So technically you don’t need a 4WD for where we went. But the extra strength inherent in a 4WD chassis, suspension and drivetrain will pay off when you’re on the dodgy roads outside the western world. There’s potholes, corrugations and vicious unmarked speedbumps all through India Nepal and Pakistan. From Iran on it wasn’t too bad, but we still came across rough patches all the way through to western Europe. We only actually went off-road once, near Lake Van in eastern Turkey.
Other benefits of a larger vehicle include the luggage capacity (the canopy was full by the end – Simon blames my collection of Persian carpets!). The size also helped getting through countries that abide by the ‘might is right’ give way rules (as did the bull-bar). Unfortunately it didn’t do so well on the Nurburgring, but that’s another story…
Other considerations included the engine and fuel type. We went for the naturally aspirated 3.0 litre diesel. There is a turbo-charged version, but the turbo is just one more thing to go wrong. Diesel and petrol are both available everywhere as far as we could tell. The only difference was in Iran, where petrol is rationed but diesel is not. With our 2×20L jerry cans we had a range of just under 1000km.
I bought the Hilux in Perth for $14,000, and we spent about $9,000 to get it ready and spare parts. Once it was ready to go, Simon and Josh chipped in a third each of the total cost, so we shared the risk equally.
Needless to say we had the Hilux checked by a mechanic, and we did a bit of preventative maintenance. This included replacing:
- timing belt
- windscreen (only because it was free on my insurance)
- all fluids and filters
- brake pads
- a couple of tyres
- battery
- one of the spotlights
- some of the wiring
- wheel alignment
We also installed:
- Flexiglass canopy
- roof rack and basket
- electronic immobiliser
- document safe
- fire extinguisher
- seat covers
I’ll cover the spares in the next section.
Once we made it to London one of three things was going to happen to the Hilux. I would find expat work somewhere in Europe and buy Josh and Simon’s share of the Hilux and I keep it in Europe, or we sell the Hilux in the UK, or our fall-back plan (which we all explicitly agreed on before we left in case there was any problems or if we couldn’t come to an agreement later on) was that we ship it back to Perth and sell it there, splitting the costs/profits.
Gear and spares:
In my humble opinion a lot of people get a bit carried away preparing for trips like this. And I’m also humble enough to admit, in hindsight, that we did as well.
The key difference between our approach and that of many other overlanders is that we didn’t plan to sleep in our vehicle. We bought along basic camping gear and planned to either camp in camping grounds or get rooms in hostels or guest houses. This cut down our gear requirements a lot (no water filters and tanks, fridges, solar panels, roof-tents, solar showers, backup power systems etc etc). Apart from the spares, we didn’t really take much more than what you’d take on an average weekend away camping.
The full list of spares can be found at the bottom of this page. The only things I wouldn’t take again are the jack stands, cordless drill and bits, and the brake pad sets. The only things I’d add to that list are:
- vehicle cover (to keep away prying eyes)
- steering wheel lock (which are obsolete in Australia anyway)
- reflective vest (a requirement in many European countries)
Other than that, we bought a bit of camping stuff – chilly-bin (Esky), plates, cutlery and cooking utensils etc in Chennai, and Simon bought a couple of gas cookers along.
Everything else we all bought individually, the only limit being our baggage allowance on the flights to India.
Shipping:
The first thing we learnt about international shipping is that you don’t work with the shipping line directly, but you go through shipping agents at each end. The primary role of the shipping agent is to book a container, and space for it on the ships you need. The rest of the work they do could be done by yourself, but it’s easiest (and more expensive) for them to do it for you. This includes:
- packing/unpacking the container
- moving the container on and off the wharf
- organising customs/quarantine paperwork, inspections and cleaning.
The interesting thing is that the actual shipping is not a large component of the costs. Most of the money is spent on the bullet points above. We asked for all inclusive quotes, as we were still working full-time and we didn’t have a lot of time to deal with the details. I’ve learnt enough from this trip to do most of it myself next time.
For the shipping to India, our agent on the Australian end was Hellas Europe Australia, and all I will say is that I would not use them again. The Chennai end was handled by B.R. Shastry who I highly recommend. Their costs were competitive, their communication was prompt, and they handled hassles at the container terminal excellently. They have offices across India, but we dealt primarily with Ramachandra Rao in the Chennai office.
The shipping cost AUD$4500 all inclusive at both ends, well that’s what we thought. Extra charges added up, including demurrage and congestion surcharge which came to a few hundred AUD$.
For the shipping back to Australia we dealt with Dynamic International in London. These guys were pretty good. The UK end (which included the actual shipping cost) was AUD$3845. For the Perth (Fremantle) end we dealt with All Ports International Logistics, who don’t have a website, but again contact me for their contact details. The Perth end cost just over AUD$3000, which was mainly port fees, but also included quarantine and customs.
Carnet:
More properly known as a Carnet de Passages en Douane (or abbreviated as CPD). The Carnet is most easily described as a passport for your vehicle, and it exempts you from paying import/export duties on the vehicle every time you cross a border. Here is a description on Wikipedia, and more info on the NRMA website. We organised ours through the Western Australian Automobile Association, the RAC. Allan Harman in the Motoring Advice section was our contact. He works Mondays and Fridays. Peppina Sorbara is the International Documents Officer at the Australian Automobile Association, who ultimately oversees the issuing of the document if the application comes through any of the Australian member organisations. Contact me of you want either of their details. The carnet cost about AUD$1200 if I remember rightly.
We listed all of the spare parts we had on the Carnet, but they were never checked on the land borders we crossed. All that was checked was the VIN plate. However we don’t know whether that list was referred to by UK or Australian Customs for the shipping legs. In hindsight my theory is that as long as the item is clearly a part for the vehicle, or a tool, they’re not going to think you’re importing it for monetary gain, so they’re not going to sting you for import duties if it’s not on the Carnet.
We needed the Carnet for India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Iran. We didn’t needed it from Turkey onwards. When we crossed into the UK at Dover, we decided to get it stamped, as we were told earlier that it was required in the UK, and we figured it might make the export process easier. The customs people at Dover had no idea what we were talking about, but we eventually got it stamped. I dare say the record of it ended up in a black hole somewhere.
The normal process on both sides of each border was to head to the immigration people first and get our passports stamped, then head to Customs to get the Carnet processed.
From what I can remember Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria all made note of the vehicle in my passport, but my passport was stolen in Sarajevo so I can’t confirm that. When they note it in your passport, you will not be able to leave the country without the vehicle, even in an emergency.
Vehicle Insurance:
Technically third-party insurance is necessary everywhere, but we didn’t bother for India Nepal Pakistan and Iran and no-one seemed to care.
Turkey cost us about USD$42 on the border for 3 months coverage. This was an AXA policy.
Bulgaria was going to cost us €200 for a month, but we got away with bribing the border guard for €20! (the only bribe we paid ourselves on the whole trip).
In Istanbul we organised a policy through Motorcycle Services which was supposed to cover us for everywhere west of Bulgaria, and provide a Green Card which is an EU-wide standardised proof of insurance. The insurance cost about USD$400 for three months. However because we left it a bit late to organise it we didn’t pick up the originals of the policy until Zagreb. The policy is sold by Motorcycle Services, which is an insurance broker in the USA, but the policy was underwritten by AIG UK. So it might make more sense to deal directly with a UK insurance agent.
There was a catch, there always is. When we crossed into Montenegro the Police officer on the border quite rightly pointed out that the Green Card we’d been issued was a bit dated, and still had Yugoslavia as one of the valid countries, and no mention of Serbia or Montenegro which were one of the last ones to break away I think. We thought it was a pretty picky interpretation of the document, but when it comes to border controls, these things are often black and white, especially in this case where a fair amount of nationalistic pride is involved. This cost us €15, which seemed like a lot at the time, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it.
We didn’t bother with insurance for the Hilux itself.
Travel Insurance:
All I will mention here is that many, if not all, travel insurance policies have exemption clauses that mean you’re not covered if you go against advice from governments or in the media not to travel to specific areas or countries. This includes sites like smarttraveller.gov.au and www.safetravel.govt.nz. For our trip that included India near the Pakistan border, all of Pakistan, and the south-east of Iran.
Visas:
I don’t want to get into this one too much, as rules change and it’s all dependent on your nationality. But I will note we had India, Pakistan and Iran visas before we left. Iran we got through iranianvisa.com, who we had no issues with.
Maps:
I still don’t understand why we didn’t take a GPS. It wasn’t bravado or arrogance, and it certainly wasn’t techno-phobia – I love GPS, I’ve always been fascinated by them, and I can’t do my job without them. It all comes down to the maps. Any GPS you buy in Australia will come pre-loaded with maps of Australia. Which would be useful for getting to the airport in Perth, then absolutely none of the following 30,000km (plus I know how to get to the airport in Perth already -I drive there every week). By the time I realised this issue with the maps I didn’t have time to buy a GPS from Europe. And a GPS without a map can still tell you exactly where you are to within a few metres, but that’s no use if it can’t tell you where everything else is. I should also note that many countries don’t have GPS maps available, the best you can do is get a generic world map.
Other sites have great advice on GPS. My only advice is, get one. We survived without it, and it was kinda fun in hindsight.
We bought a handful of country scale maps, we found the Hema series to be excellent (they have a dark blue cover). These would be supplemented by the Lonely Planet maps in each handbook, which weren’t ideal for cross-country navigation, which is understandable as they’re not designed for that.
For India and Europe we got book-style road atlases.
Lonely Planet’s have a map or two for each major city they cover which were often fine for navigating around the city itself. Some of the bigger cities like Budapest and Munich we bought proper fold-out maps from service stations. Most of the time we would aim for the central city using the highway maps, then as we got closer we’d try to work out where we were intercepting the central city map in the LP. This is where the GPS would’ve been most useful, on that transition from highway to city maps.
Websites:
I’ve lost most of my bookmarks, but here’s a few that I still have.
www.drive4care.nl – virtually all in Dutch. We met these guys briefly when we swapped police escorts in Baluchestan, Iran.
Hectors Adventures -these guys have a very informative site.
Africa Overland -many many stories from overlanders tackling all parts of the world.
The British AA -an excellent selection of fact sheets for driving in European countries.
Detailed vehicle preparation, spares and costs:
This is pretty much everything we spent while still in Australia, but it doesn’t include any shipping.
| Item | Cost (AUD$) |
| 2001 Hilux | $14,000.00 |
| Beauracracy | |
| Rego 11/07 – 11/08 | $461.20 |
| Carnet | $1,893.54 |
| 6 month warranty | $500.00 |
| RAC membership | $158.00 |
| Transfer fee and stamp duty | $395.20 |
| Stuff we’ve fitted | |
| Immobiliser | $195.00 |
| Canopy | $1,815.00 |
| Roof racks | $419.00 |
| Roof Basket | $200.00 |
| Fire extinguisher | $32.00 |
| Windscreen | $0.00 |
| Battery | $135.00 |
| Spotlight lens | $50.00 |
| Safe | $149.00 |
| New tyre | $165.00 |
| Seat covers | $44.96 |
| Diff oil | $19.95 |
| Workshop stuff | |
| Toyota inspection | $108.00 |
| Wheel alignment | $38.50 |
| Fuel non-return valve | $25.95 |
| Fuel filter | $45.00 |
| Labour Hine Motors | $80.00 |
| Replace belts | $403.00 |
| Spares/tools | |
| 2nd spare wheel | $263.00 |
| Trolley jack | $59.95 |
| Warning triangle | $22.46 |
| Tow rope | $55.00 |
| Booster cables | $50.00 |
| Air compressor | $35.00 |
| 2x Diesel containers | $65.96 |
| 4x shackles | $26.50 |
| Service manual | $49.00 |
| Tarpaulin | $9.56 |
| Jack stands | $39.95 |
| 4x camping chairs | $39.56 |
| Cordless drill | $59.98 |
| Screwdriver set | $44.96 |
| Set of drill bits | $17.06 |
| Headlight | $20.66 |
| 11x Spare bulbs | $30.50 |
| 5x sets of Fuses | $11.25 |
| Tyre pressure gauge | $11.66 |
| 2x Radiator hoses | $22.00 |
| 2x hose clamps | $2.70 |
| 2x Oil filters | $16.12 |
| 2x Fuel filters | $41.32 |
| Air filter | $26.06 |
| 2x containers Brake fluid | $18.92 |
| Funnel | $2.40 |
| Brake pad set | $169.97 |
| Diesel fuel additive | $35.96 |
| Silicone sealant | $14.35 |
| Cable ties | $3.95 |
| Various metal screws | $2.95 |
| Multimeter | $15.26 |
| Wiper blades | $12.00 |
| Rear brake shoes | $116.00 |
| Drive belts | $42.92 |
| Shifter | $13.50 |
| Padlock | $1.95 |
| Pliers | $19.00 |
| Wrench | $11.66 |
| Gaffer tape | $30.00 |
| 3L engine oil | $25.00 |
| 12v – AC inverter | $59.00 |
| Tool Kit including: | $110.00 |
| Socket set | |
| Wire stripper | |
| Hammer | |
| Small Screwdriver set | |
| Electric connectors | |
| Thickness gauge | |
| Adjustable Spanner | |
| 6x spanners | |
| AA Batteries | |
| Hex key set | |
| Wire brush | |
| File | |
| Pliers | |
| Oil filter puller | |
| Amount spent | $23,058.30 |
