PREPARATION

This page will contain the list of preparations we carry out before we leave. Hopefully this will be useful for other overlanders preparing for a similar trip. We will be gradually filling in the blanks on this page until we go, so keep coming back for updated information.

Carnet de Passage en Douanes

This is effectively a passport for the car that is required by some countries. The reasoning behind it is that some countires charge a ridiculous import duty if you sell the car in that country. Egypt, for example is 800%, yes, that's right. If you sell a car for £10,000 in Egypt you have to pay £80,000 in tax. The Carnet just gives the country a way of claiming that money through the RAC if you fail to export your vehicle.

Contact embassies

Off road driving course

If, like us, you have no offroad driving experience then it's well worth booking yourself on a course. You'll get to learn all about differentials, cross axels and recovery. Well worth doing this in your own vehicle to help you in getting to know it.

Passport

Arabic translations of passport. As far as we're aware, this is only required for Libya.
Make sure it's not about to expire and there are plenty of free pages

First Aid Course

We booked a first aid course through the Red Cross. We managed to conveniently fit it in on a drive back from The Great North Run. Not doing it in London halves the cost of the course, so if you're London based it's worth considering a little excursion for the course.

Bank accounts

Get several of bank accounts and several debit and credit cards, that way, if one fails you should have a backup. If you happen to have your savings in a bank such as Icesave, like we did, then you'll have a bit of a buffer should the worst happen while you're abroad.

Vaccinations

Go to your local GP and have a chat. We went to both a travel clinic and our GP. The vaccinations that are charged for on the NHS were still cheaper than any private travel clinic we could find. Leave a couple of months to get all tis sorted, you can't have them all one day.

3rd party insurance by country (carte brune etc)

Visas

Get ICMV (International Certificate of Motor Vehicle)

This is effectively an internation version of the UK vehicle registration document

UK road tax

Apparently you have have valid UK road tax to be legal abroad. The other option of course is to declare your car as SORN, although don't tell the DVLA what you're doing!

Insurance

Personal
Vehicle

Go to dentist

We both had our respective teeth filled and crowned, I'd recommend leaving a few weeks for this so any post procedure problems can be sorted.

International Driving Permit

Get medication

Write up documents with personal details

Passport photos

Make copies of all documents

Print documents

Email scanned documents to self and family

The Vehicle

This will be house, home, transport and security for many months. Things to be considered are

Learn how vehicle works!
Adapt vehicle to what required and do lots of dry runs to make sure everything is as expected
Spare parts for vehicle