Hi, if anyone out there could give us some advice on paperwork, we would be very grateful! We are planning a RTW trip, starting next March. We have a honda vfr 750 88 and a kawasaki 454 ltd 86. We are planning to drive through Europe, mainly along the South coast, in or around Turkey, as far across the middle east as we can, wherever it is safe to drive, then into India, South-East Asia, all the way down, the ship to Australia, across that, over to New Zealand, then across to South America and up from there to North America, then home to Dublin.

There's no limit on our trip, as we plan to stop regularly along the way and teach English, or work as divemasters, also do a lot of volunteering and charity work. Therefore, we don't know how long we will be staying in each country. I have checked all of this from a visa point of view and am sorting out the visas where necessary for us. However, the problem is the bikes! We are not clear if a carnet de Passage will do in this case. If we stay in India for a long time, will we have problems with our Carnet? If we end up spending the year getting through India, will our Carnet be useless by the time we reach India? Does it have a time limit on it? If so, what is the alternative? Also, if you are planning to stop and work, does this effect you taking the bike into another country? Do you need to re-register it there?
We are also unclear about motorbike insurance. Being Irish, we know that in Europe we need bike insurance. However, where else in the world do you need it? Is any insurance valid in India etc? Our bikes are not very valuable, so from that point of view insurance is not hugely important, but we would hate to end up having problems at borders etc if we don't have the papers they want!
Any advice you can give us would be grately appreciated! As we will need to start organising insurance if it is needed.

Thanks a million!

The info is buried in various posts in various places on this site.

Working in a country - that has everything to do with the viasa you are issued - nothing to do with the bike/s.

Carnet are valid for 12 months - you can get new ones on the road - ask the people who issue you your first carnet - they should have some system in place.

Insurance ... most places want you to have third party (personal) insurance .. to cover their citizens if you run them down. This will probably be avaliable at the border. Sometimes it may not be worth teh money .. could go straight into someones pocket.

Registration - you will need to keep the bikes registered at home .. that way you should not have to register them eleswhere.. as I understand it you should be good for up to 12 months in any one country. After taht they may well consider you to be a permanent resident .. andy you'll have visa issues to deal with too.

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Regards Frank Warner
motorcycles BMW R80 G/S 1981, BMW K11LT 1993, BMW K75 G/S

Thanks for your advice Frank, its very helpful! If you get insurance as you pass each border, does that mean for us leaving Ireland, we should only insure our bikes from Ireland through Europe, and then stop the Irish insurance policy? Sorry if that sounds like a dumb question, but we've never done border crossings on bike before! We're wondering should we get Irish insurance? Or just leave it and pay as we enter each country?

If you can get insurance at home for the other countries at a reasonable price then I'd do it. However you'll find that either 1) it is not avaliable or 2) it is priced too high.

If you can maintain your registration without insurance then do taht - it saves a bit of money .. and you certainly won't be able to claim on insurace when your in a country it is not valid for.

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Regards Frank Warner
motorcycles BMW R80 G/S 1981, BMW K11LT 1993, BMW K75 G/S

The only insurance you should have before your trip is the "Green Card" insurance mandatory in all of Europe.

My green card covered me in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Turkey and was also valid for Iran.

I wouldn't worry about any other insurance. If its required, you will be able to get it at the border and the officials will make sure you get it before you leave the border area!

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Dave
www.mototrekker.com

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Dave McMillan
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/mcmillan/

Check out the carnet situation first. There was an Irishman here on HUBB a while ago who wrote that there is no organisation in Ireland issuing carnets.

Rego: whether or not you keep paying it depends on whether or not it is obvious from your rego papers that it has expired. I have travelled two years on an NZ registered bike and I let the rego lapse. I don't see the point in paying road tax for roads I don't use. I just peeled off the expired sticker. This trip I will be doing on German rego and I intend to deregister the bike somewhere convenient in Asia. Apparently, German embassies do this sort of thing. Otherwise, I'll be paying insurance as well, but won't be covered. There is a topic here somewhere about "editing" your rego papers (Canadian, cause you can only renew them in Canada...). Perhaps this might be an option for you.

Staying longer in a country than 6 or 12 months on a carnet is not possible. In India, for example, we had to leave after 6 months. If you stay and work then in theory you need to import your bike, which is possibly impractical. You could drive to a neighbouring country for a day and the 6 months should start again... This will not work in Oz or NZ, for obvious reasons...

Talk to your bike insurer about the Green Card, whether you have to pay extra or what countries they will cover. After Iran, forget about it.

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Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10