Project Fi Invite

Many of you have asked how we are handling our phone service down under. Short answer, we are keeping our US service and will be able to call and text using it for great prices.

This year (back in February) we switched to Google's Project Fi service. It has been awesome for us. When we started, they only had individual plans. But, now they have family plans. So, now it is:

• $20/month for the first user
• $15/month for each additional user
• $10/GB, pro-rated (use only 0.5 GB, get $5 back)

We normally use less than a GB each, so our monthly bill between the 2 of us is usually less than $60/month (with taxes and fees), often around $54. When I did the research back in February, this plan was the cheapest option (compared against T-Mobile and Sprint) for up to 3GB per person (6GB total) for us.

The best part of this deal for us is that they offer the same rates internationally for texting and data. Calls are charged, but you can make free calls over wifi to the states. So, we can continue to use our phones and phone numbers in Australia and New Zealand. 

In the states, I have found the network to be very good. Much better than Sprint's, maybe not quite up to Verizon's coverage. However, the ability to connect to wifi (and it provides free access to many paid wifi networks) and make texts and calls often makes up for any deficiencies. And, if there are issues, Project Fi's support is quick and ready to assist. 

The only real catch to this service is that you have to use one of Google's phones (Nexus 5X/6/6P, Pixel, or Pixel XL). What is awesome about these phones, however, is that they have dual antennas (CDMA and GSM) and they are unlocked. So, they can connect to any of the US carriers. Should we decide we don't like Google's service in Australia, we can simply switch to another carrier, keeping the same phone (try doing that with any other phone).

If you do want to check out the service, there is a new promotion out there for referring friends. If you sign up using the link below (and keep your service for 30 days), you and I both get $20 credit on our bill. 

https://g.co/fi/r/PHC120

Shipping Schedule Update

Happy holidays folks, and stay warm out there (or cool if you're down under).

Our shipping agent has booked a container for us.  They expect to pack the container next week with the ship departing on the 24th.

The schedule has the ship making port on Jan 14th 2017.  So we will be flying to Australia in about 35 days or so.

Waiting is hard, and I miss the van.  I guess this gives us time to decide on a name!

Shipping Agent Search

If you know me, you know that I never make a decision without finding out all the options and figuring out the best option. So, of course, choosing a shipping agent was no different. However, this endeavor was not quite what I was expecting. I was expecting to be able to do a quick google search, submit requests for quotes, and get answers quickly. Most of that ended up not happening simply.

First of all, trying to find a place to request quotes for shipping to Australia was difficult. A lot of the recommended agents (K Line) or methods (uship) would not ship to Australia. To get companies that actually shipped to Australia, I had to query “ship a car to Australia” instead of the generic “ship a car (overseas)”.

Then, almost none of the websites offered instant quotes. Instead, you had to submit a form to them, and they would get back to you with a quote, eventually. In fact, they would often take as long as 10 days to provide me any sort of response (not even a we-receive-your-request email). This was just plain weird for me; since normally businesses are eager to receive my commerce. And, out of the 13 companies that I contacted, only 5 of them responded. Additionally, the company that we ended up going with (CFR Rinkens) wasn’t even on my list. They contacted me. I am not concerned; I have found that often these companies forward your request to a sister company to do the work that they don’t cover specifically.

Company	Date Requested	Date Received
Taurus Logistics	9/30/2016	10/2/2016
McCullough Limited	9/30/2016
Aussie Car Imports	10/17/2016
West Coast Shipping (WCS)	10/17/2016	10/17/2016
Schumacher Cargo Logistics, Inc.	10/17/2016
USAtoAUS.com	10/17/2016
Shipping 2 Australia	10/17/2016
Ever Global International	10/17/2016	10/23/2016
Auto Car Shippers	10/17/2016
Able Auto Transport	10/17/2016
Kiwi Shipping	Exceeds Dimensions
Ship Overseas	Don't ship to AUS/NZ
Colless Young Pty Ltd	11/2/2016	11/10/2016
Alliance Intercontinental Pty Ltd.	11/2/2016	Same as Colless

Then, navigating the quotes that they send you is a whole different world, which is why we received a wide range of prices, from $2460 to $8000. Some offered full service. Some offered just the container rental with no assistance getting the container on or off. We are getting a bit of a in-between. CFR is handling the shipping from the US to Australia portion, including US customs and container loading. We have to handle obtaining a carnet, an EIN, and getting the vehicle to the warehouse. CFR also won’t handle the Australian half of the unloading. Supposedly they have sister companies down there that we can work with in a similar set up. The agent will handle unloading the container, but we handle Australian customs and paperwork.

Since we won’t be on much of a time constraint and don’t mind doing the work associated with border crossings (having already completed ~21 of them, most of which were in Spanish), we figured we would save some money and do the work ourselves. If you don’t like dealing with paperwork, then a full-service option is better. We could have saved more money, possibly, by figuring out how to handle the shipping and the loading/unloading of the container ourselves, but it just wasn’t worth it.

It has been a unique experience so far. Maybe I will be an old pro by the next time we have to do it (Australia to New Zealand, yay!). Perhaps not. But, at least I will have some experience gained.

Bon Voyage?!

Well, we are now van-less.  The Yet To Be Named Van (YTBNV) has been delivered to the shipping service.  It will be packed into a container, loaded onto a ship, and delivered to Melbourne Australia.  We are now homeless for 5 weeks or so.  I have my fingers crossed hoping the van and contents arrive unscathed.  Thankfully the odds are on our side, as the vast majority of sea freight arrives in the same condition it departed.

Here is one last shot of YTBNV as we wash it one last time prior to shipping.  My uncle graciously allowed us to use his driveway in the hills above the port.

The view isn't too shabby either. If you look real close you can even see the port cranes in the distance.

Once we have a firm departure date and vessel name we can estimate the arrival time.  Sometime in early January seems likely at this point.

We will be lodging Visa applications shortly, other than that we find ourselves in a holding pattern until the van arrives.  I guess we will have plenty of time to educate ourselves about Australia and New Zealand.

What’s in a Name?

Well, we are in the last sprint to get the van shipped off. We have chosen a shipping company and have started the carnet application, so hopefully just a matter of a couple of weeks before the van is at port.

But, before we can ship off, I was hoping to pick a name for the van. We are struggling a bit with this one. Jonathan says that the van hasn’t done anything worthy of a name yet, doesn’t have enough character. However, last time we chose a name, it wasn’t really based on anything about the van. We had just found a fun theme inspired by a character on Burn Notice. The character Sam Axe always used the alias “Chuck Finley.” Always refused to use anything else. If he needed an upgrade, it went to Charles Finley. “Chuck Finley is forever” was his mantra. We loved that and thus dubbed the vanagon, with my flair for the dramatic, “Charles Theodore Finley the Third,” fondly known as Chuck.

Now it is time to pick a new name for the new van, but Jonathan hasn’t liked anything I put out so far. I have been looking for a gender-neutral name so it can still be Jonathan’s mistress (female) while still being a “he” to me (all my vehicles are male). Failing that, I have also been looking for a travel-related name. My ideas so far (in no particular order):

1. Darcy– gender neutral, I think. I think of Mr. Darcy, but I also know of many females with a first name of Darcy.
2. Samwise Gamgee – Frodo’s faithful and loyal friend, willing to carry him to the ends of the earth. How can you go wrong with naming a van that? LOTR fans, anyone?
3. Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein (aka Will) – Shout out to A Knight’s Tale, an old favorite of mine. It is not travel-related, but it is Europe-related (this van hails from Germany as well) and a very fancy name just for fun. We can call him Will, like his friends in the movie do.
4. Walter Mitty – from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I loved this movie! Just makes you want to go out and travel the world, doesn’t it?

There can also be a bunch of plays on words and names (see this website for examples for pets). I am not very clever in that arena; I know I have a many friends who are, though. So, do any of you have any suggestions? Post here so that others can feed off your ideas, or contact us directly. We would love the input!

October Updates

Greetings from this side of the internet.  Its been a few weeks since our last update, so its time to post our progress.

We have requested a large number of shipping quotes.  After a lot of back and forth we have decided to try container shipping.  Due to the 2.585 meter height restriction for high cube shipping containers, we will be needing to fit the van with steel shipping wheels.  These are custom made from steel plate, and will lower the van about 6 inches so that it will clean the door aperture on a container.  A generous friend has offered us the use of a CNC plasma cutter so that we can cut a set of these wheels.  Another option would be to use bare rims, but sprinter rims are fairly hard to come by, and are not cheap (plus they take up a lot of room).

Shipping routes from the USA to AUS are generally cheapest out of the Los Angeles port of Long Beach which is a hub for these routes.  Most of Australia's south east coast is common rated, so freight costs are the same for Sydney Melbourne etc.  There is some variance in port fees, but they seem to be fairly minor.  I have contact with a few fellow sprinter owners in Melbourne, so we will likely ship to that port.

We have a little bit of work left to do as we shoehorn all of our equipment into the van.  I still need to make a few storage dividers and some tie downs, but overall it is progressing nicely. We still need to request visas and acquire our CPD Carnet for the van.  We are holding off on these until we have a ship date for the van.  The temporary import of the van is tied to our visa expiration date, and the Carnet is only good for a year (it can be extended).  So these items all need to have similar/close start dates.

I spent a few quality hours under the van with a pressure washer over the weekend in an attempt to remove 10 years of road grime.  Mercedes felt the need to coat most of the vans underside (as well as inside the body cavities) with a wax like anti-corrosion product.  The good is that the van is rust free underneath.  The bad is that this wax has road grime and soot embedded in it.  I did the best I could, but factory fresh cleanliness is not a reasonable possibility.  Hopefully the Australian inspectors are lenient.

We have over 10 thousand miles on the vans chassis, and about half of that on the complete conversion.  At this point the van is pretty well shaken down, and  most of the minor issues have been resolved.  I still have a coolant seep or two in the water heating loop (new clamps?), and a oil seep or two as well.  I think I have most of them remedied, but there is a lot of plumbing.  Surprisingly we have had minimal issues with the conversions systems other than a few design/layout deficiencies which cannot be remedied at this stage.

Our future plans are still fluid at this point, but we are hopping to have the van in transit by the end of November.  We are requesting a fast ship, which should hopefully keep the transit time under 20 days.  If all goes well we will be on the road in Australia before 2017.

This is likely to be the last round of van modifications before we post up a complete "tour" of our new home in the coming weeks.

Here are the bug screens.





A hold down for the folding table.



Some protection for the AC unit.



I have created a system to allow for wifi access and a shared network for our electronic devices. A wifi router produces a local network, WAN is provided by a Ubiquity Nanostation. The nanostation has a powerful antenna, and allow us to connect to distant wifi networks. Using a suction cup mount allows us to position the nanostation on a window (or outdoors, as its weather proof).









I made a more permanent storage solution for the winch and recovery gear in the rear. Custom length bungee straps and eye bolts allow for strapping everything down.



A rack on the other side holds the various hand tools we need on a regular basis.



After much head scratching I couldn't find a good place for the maxtrax inside the van. I decided to fabricate a mounting rack on th passenger side rear door. It bolts through the hinges, and uses one hole in the door skin.

The Retired Life

We are still plugging away at our task list.  Taking our time at it as retired folks tend to do. Less and less of it is van related, which bodes well. The little things that remain are what turn an adventure van into a long term abode. For example, having a place for everything. Some of the biggest frustrations can be avoided by having convenient and specific stowage locations for daily use items. Sunglasses, cell phones, shoes etc. Making repetitive tasks simpler by adding latches, loops, velcro, or customized stowage locations improves on task flow. Spending a few days ironing these details out makes daily living in such a small space easy.

Our packing method is to first sort by essential/nonessential, frequency of use, and then group by type. Daily use items are located within arms reach inside the cabin, rarely used items end up sorted inside containers under the bed. Safety and emergency items are kept in clearly marked locations regardless of use frequency. This approach minimizes unpacking, maximizes cargo space, and keeps frustration down. Each container gets marked, and a log of its contents is kept digitally. For critical or emergency items, the list is printed or hand written on the container.

A few random items on the van, they may seem small, but its the details that make the difference.

I used some left over Celtec to make a stowage unit behind the drivers seat. A removable trash container, fire extinguisher, and table leg are stowed here in addition to the forward table top.



Using Celtec again I made 2 fairing panels for the roof. These fill the space between the forward and aft solar panels. Hopefully they will help to reduce turbulence from side winds. This should reduce buffeting of the roof vent, and lower the noise levels.



The celtec was bonded with CA glue (super glue). After working with the Celtec and CA glue combination, I have found it extremely easy, and good to work with. If I had to make cabinets again, I would strongly consider using the Celetc and CA glue combo for many of them.

I have also been finishing some final routine maintenance items. Here is the brake fluid, I suspect it is original to the van. It is definitely past its life expectancy.