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Date:         Mon, 22 Apr 2002 08:15:18 -0400
Reply-To:     Rob Gunter <rgunter@SEC-TN.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Rob Gunter <rgunter@SEC-TN.COM>
Subject:      Overseas travel questions, especially for Britain
In-Reply-To:  <200204210018602.SM01268@gerry.vanagon.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Greetings All,

Unless you have a special purpose vehicle and plan to do some serious overlanding with a full on expedition vehicle (like to India or something), I suggest you buy a van in England. I used to have a link to an online vehicle classified in the UK, but no longer. In my travels I have bought and sold vehicles in New Zealand, Australia, and India. There is a huge network of travelers (unfortunately very very few Americans) worldwide that buy and sell vehicles as the move on. You will find it surprisingly easy to do this once you get in the network. Pick up a lonely planet or "rough guide" guide book to find the network. They usually congregate in a particular district of large cities like London, Edinborough (sp?), etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a backpacker car market in England much like the one in Sydney Australia.

That said, it would be pretty cheap if you could find a left hand drive vehicle in the UK as no-one there wants one, and they drive on the right on the mainland. Of course there are registration problems you will have to sort out, but it would be much easier to do in a country where you speak a version of the language.... Make sure you bring proof of insurance when you go over, and buy a AAA membership before you go. The EU (and NZ and OZ) versions of AAA are MUCH better and have reciprocal agreements.

The most important thing in buying and selling vehicles on the backpacker market is timing. You will have a difficult time selling a vehicle in December in the UK. They optimum thing to do is buy in Mar-April and sell some time in the summer, or go somewhere like Spain or Italy to sell in the Winter. The advantage of backpacker cars is that they usually come fully equipped with camping stuff and you know why they are selling it (leaving the country as opposed to selling a problem vehicle).

Yours,

Rob

http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/PassportPl/gunter01/


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