Getting a vehicle across the pond
Taking a few suitcases across the Atlantic can cause stress for many a traveler. But taking a home on wheels across? That’s a different story.
Vern Martin of the Baltimore-based shipping company Seabridge International said that every day his company and others ship cars, trucks, vans and motor homes from the United States to Europe and back. Granted, many of those vehicles are shipped for selling purposes. But many are private vehicles owned by travelers like Bob Tait and his wife Maureen Kelly of Shaler.
Though travelers often can buy a motor home in Europe with guaranteed buy-back agreements, Kelly said for them it was just more economical to ship their own and convert it to work with European electrical outlets. A large factor in that decision was hotel costs.
According to Martin, the average cost of shipping a motor home is $2,000 to $3,000. The other costs associated with taking a vehicle to Europe were insurance and the higher gasoline costs of $7 to $10 per gallon, Tait said.
Martin said 10 times more Europeans ship their vehicles to America than Americans ship to Europe. Europeans love to travel in America because there are no language barriers and no borders. “When you go to Europe, there are eight to 12 languages,” he said.
“Americans are starting to catch on,” he said. “You can see a lot more of Europe in your own vehicle than taking a two-week trip and packing it all in.”
