Lots of sound advice above

personally I wouldn't go with the fly/buy/drive option. It limits your preparation and what you can take.

It can be a lot more complicated than you probably think to buy and insure a vehicle in a country you don't live in.

One of the keys to vehicle reliability is history and familiarity with your vehicle. Everytime you buy a different vehicle your buying an unknown and taking a massive gamble, Instead I would buy or import a suitable vehicle in the UK and then spend some time getting to know it. Find a good reliable garage to work on it and cultivate a relationship, they may teach you a lot. I helped (hindered!)the garage I use prep my vehicles.I would say own the vehicle for a minimum of 12 months prior to leaving, preferably longer, even if it's a new one. Plenty of new cars have inbuilt faults! Even Toyotas! My Hilux had to have a new steering rack under warranty.

One thing to consider is most disastrous vehicle stopping mechanical problems take a while to develop, electronic ones can be sudden and unexpected

When considering the age and value of a vehicle, consider the carnet implications, you can save a lot on your carnet by buying an older vehicle and doing it up because the standard market value for carnet purposes will be lower. In places where you need a carnet I think you may find it tricky if the vehicle is from a different country to you, but I have no experience of this so others may know better.

There are extensive posts on here about the pro's and cons of new vs old vehicles so I won't go over them again. Read them, there are valid arguments for both sides.

Start with little trips, maybe as suggested eastern Europe, or morocco is a great place to explore. you may find this travelling lark isn't for you. A guy I know put everything into a RTW motorbike trip, and turned back at Italy!! If thats you, then fine, it's better to find out than not to even try and spend your life dreaming of what could have been. On that vein, don't let the dream and the planning become the event in itself, some people reach the ultimate extension of this and have a vehicle, and an elaborate plan, but never actually travel, you'll often see the vehicles on ebay!

with that in mind, don't burn your bridges. put your stuff into storage and rent the house out! apart from anything else if you decide you really like this travelling lark the rent may provide you with an income to carry on doing it!

Thanks everyone, very helpful indeed. The plan is to rent out the house and maybe move somewhere smaller to speed up the saving process.

Bought a cheap second hand motorhome this winter for holidays this year, so we can get used to the travelling/living in close quarters, before downsizing further to a 4x4.

I've read countless arguments about best vehicle so I purposely didn't want to open that bag of worms!

I will do more research on the buy/sell as you go option, legal requirements and carnets. However, I think you are all talking good sense about spending more time with the vehicle up front, in the UK, get to know it, trust it.

Would you advocate importing a LHD vehicle, from say, Germany? I see there are plenty of Troopies advertised on there from fairly low prices up to eye watering wedges of cash.

Short trips first is very sensible advice. Only problem is that 2 weeks is the max time I could get off work to do one. With that in mind where do you think would be the best destinations to give a vehicle a good trial run?

Hi
You don't say where you are, we live in North East Scotland, and it takes us 2 days to Dover and 2 back, only leaves 10, you need to see how the motor does on hills motorways and A & B roads, for ease of driving also mpg.
So may be Wales lake district or Scotland.
Camp sites and wild camping, see how you get on with wind and rain, and of course the sun.
Then their is tent, roof tent or inside your vehicle, how you are going to cook, their are a lot of ways and a lot of different cookers, gas, petrol, electric. Their is quite a lot to take in, I would suggest one forum to look on is
Free forum : 4x4's, Overland Travel, Off Road, Touring and Camping
I am biased, their are others.
Then do you plan to stay in one place for a day or two, or longer, above about the two weeks, if you are near the port of Dover, we once did what was called a Landy Rally, started in Holland then did 11 countries in 9 days.
see here Home - Teddys
My opinion would be to do some trips in the UK first.

Best of luck on your travels, all you need is a sense of Adventure, and have fun.

__________________
130sasha.co.uk - Home
http://teddybearspicnic.webs.com

there do seem to be issues with using RHDs in some countries, as highlighted on another post, so importing may be an answer. You could speak to LL landcruisers in Holland.

there is also a guy on

http://www.landcruiserclub.net/forums/forum.php

who sources landcruisers to order

LHD 80s and 70s do show up every so often in the UK, but it's just luck finding a good one.