What should you budget?

OK, I'm gonna cut to the chase here because this is the question that most people ask once you tell them that you are importing an Airstream to Australia...

It will cost us about $17,500 to have an Airstream sourced in continental USA and shipped to our property near Byron Bay (in Northern NSW) Australia.

Kimono wide open, this is what our budget spreadsheet looks like...

These figures are in Australian Dollars.

We went over a little.  I was hoping to get it in under $15k but we found an awesome trailer and what are you gonna do.

You can absolutely pay less for a trailer - we were looking at a really nice one for $4,000.

You can do it without the US agent - most people do but we found ours invaluable.  We employed Mark Evans who is known as The Airstream Guy and he totally lives up to his name.  Totally worth it for the peace of mind.  Mark is a fantastic bloke, more on him in a future post.

The shipping is about the best price around.  Frank at Kiawah Lines is very, very thorough and responsive. Lovely guy too.

The only other strategy for reducing your cost is to find a trailer closer to one of the few ports that ship to Australia - thus reducing your overland component.  If you go east coast, the sea component becomes more expensive anyway so you pretty much need to be finding a trailer on the west coast and close to California - the main port is just near LA.  The extra bonus of buying west coast is that it is dryer on that side and there is less chance of rust / leakage problems but these trailers have not always lived at their last destination, they move around.

So, there you go.  If $12,000 -  $20,000 (in fact the sky is the limit) sounds a little rich for you then pick up a copy of the Trading Post and start checking out Millards and Viscounts at the weekend : )

Let me know if you have any questions on budgeting.
Matt.