A few months ago we didn’t know that was possible to ship a vehicle to another continent and today we know it’s possible and we are going to explain you how are we gonna do it.
There are two ways to send your vehicle in a ship:
* with a container
* with roll-on roll-off
The first option, the container, is where the most of the goods of the world are transported, we normally see them in the ports or in the trains. Its a really secure option because the same owner with someone from the personal port and a notary put the vehicle in the container, close it and seal it infront of you, and its not gonna be open again till the owner repeat the same operation with the notary in the destination port.
There are different container sizes but in no one fits our Cactus! with his almost 3 m high 🙁
The second option, roll-on roll-off, means that you drive your car into the pier and leave it there, you give the keys to some personal from the port and they are responsible to load your vehicle in the ship and move it if its necessary in the different ports where the ship is gonna stop during your travel. You can read a lot of histories in internet, some end good with any problem and some end with broken locks and robberies from the equipment and/or baggage. Obviously there are insurances but rarely afford all the damage and for sure not the discomfort and lost of time….
We don’t have any option like i say it before, so we are gonna ship it using roll-on roll-off and as preventive measure we want to build a wall between the cockpit and the habitable zone from the van and then cross our fingers that he arrive safe and sound!
We check different companies and we decide us for Belgaco Shipping Bvba and we will send Cactus the 29 of November 2016. The estimated time are 4 weeks, so at the last days from 2016 we will pick up it in Montevideo and start our adventure!!
There are 3 big harbors in South America shipping from Europe, Cartagena de Indias in Colombia, Buenos Aires in Argentina and Montevideo in Uruguay. We decide to ship to Uruguay because we want to start the route from south and compare to Argentina the taxes are much cheaper.
Adding all the expenses, the taxes in both harbors (Amberes, Belgica and Montevideo, Uruguay), the shipping based in cubic meters from the vehicle and the insurance, we pay 3.100€.
