How to drive a car from Australia to Europe?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 28 Jul, 2023
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It seems the main road-block here is China, where foreign cars are not allowed.
Last year in Central Asia I met three couples with their cars that would all continue to drive into China. They had all booked a tour in advanced, they would drive together with some other foreign cars on a pre-defined route accompanied by a local guide/car.
I don’t know any details, but they may have to use Chinese license plates while in China, but all the necessary paper work is done by the travel agency.
A quick Google search returns companies like china-driving.com that mention different routes including one from the Laos-Chinese border to the Chinese-Kyrgyzstan border.
Of course, this option will not be cheap and there may be a fixed date for the tour and the itinerary is pretty fixed too.
So if you can make it to Laos, you can take this tour through China to Kyrgyzstan, from there it is slightly easier to reach Europe, but still quite adventurous and you have several options. I recommend Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and then into Turkey.
The northern route through Russia is certainly doable and reasonably safe. If you want to minimise the amount of kilometres your car is transported by boat, then look at having it shipped from Darwin to somewhere in Indonesia. From there, you can travel via Indonesia, Singapore (there are ferries connecting the islands), then up through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, China and into Russia.
Once in Russia, you can of course drive all the way into Europe, but you might also like to consider visiting Mongolia and Kazakhstan along the way.
You’ll need to invest a lot of time into arranging the necessary permits to bring your vehicle as well as visas for you and your travelling partners. Be prepared for lots of bureaucracy. There are commercial agencies which specialise in arranging visas and vehicle permits.
You other option is the southern route. It’s very difficult getting vehicle permits for Myanmar, so your best bet here is to have the car shipped directly to India. From there you can tour around India then drive through Pakistan, Iran and into Turkey, Bulgaria and onwards as you please. Again, be prepared for lots of bureaucracy getting all your visas and permits, and be aware that the security situation in Pakistan is unstable (you may want to rush it, and stay as far as possible from the Afghani border).
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Yes,it is possible to drive from Asia to Europe.We have done it already.From Thailand – Laos – China – Mongolia – Russia and Europe in 60 Days.Thailand Toyota Fortuner is the vehicle we use.
You most likely cannot do so in any reasonable manner through South-East Asia since you would have to eventually cross either through China, Pakistan or Afghanistan. China is impossible (the do not allow foreign license plates), and Pakistan and Afghanistan are not safe enough to do so.
Just from the countries that you can drive through, you might have to go through Russia by shipping the car to Vladivostok and drive from there. This would also not require you to deal with 5-10 different borders, import duties, license plate issues etc.
Generally I would consider the issues, the damage on the car driving tens of thousands of kilometers through unpaved Russian highways and the fuel consumption. If you sold your car in Australia, take a cheap flight to Europe and buy a used car down there and have a job for the month it would take you to drive over, you might come out not much more expensive.
Generally speaking shipping a car from Australia to Asia might be only a marginal price difference to shipping to from Australia to Europe directly. I would call a freight forwarder and inquire prices.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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