Australian Travelling around the USA for 6 months

AprilWhine wrote:

wintersun wrote:
There are states like Nevada which have no sales tax. In California it is around 8%. Worth checking out beforehand. Lots of used RV's in the Las Vegas and Arizona area. You can also save on the DMV (department of motor vehicle) fees which vary greatly from state to state.

In most states you can create a limited liability corporation or LLC that can own the vehicle and will provide a measure of protection in the event of an accident. Many states, including Nevada will do this for a low cost and everything can be done online.

Please check your information. Nevada DOES charge sales tax for vehicles bought from a dealer. Where you might be confused is that there is no sales tax on a private party vehicle sale.

Why would anyone want to buy a brand new RV and then sell it used in 6 months and lose $20,000 in the process. The sales tax would be the least of their worries. A new vehicle that may have problems is not wise for a trip around the USA where taking it back to the dealer for warranty problems is not practical. I have friends in Reno that have sold their two motorhomes at a collective loss of over $170,000 or about $20K per year of use. The people that bought these motorhomes saved a lot of money and were smart.

In California even with a private party sale the Dept Motor Vehicles will charge the sales tax when the vehicle is registered and it will be 7.5% or more. That's an extra $5000 or more that need not be spent on taxes.

A LLC in Nevada is cheap (filing fee is US $75) and can be done entirely online which is not the case for most states. A LLC is a safe way to own the RV and not have to worry about being tied up in the courts in the event of a serious accident. Nevada law makes it particularly difficult to sue a corporate entity for any reason.

I would do the same in any country - i.e. create a corporation and have it own the vehicle. Worse case I can abandon the corporation and its assets - the truck or car, and have no additional liabilities.

So we ended up buying a 1997 Winnebago (25ft) in California.

What we learnt...

Registering the RV - once you're sure you are buying an RV get a mail forwarding address - you will need that to register the vehicle if you don't already have an address in the state/US - we definitely did not need any SSN or US drivers licence. We used Mailbox Exchange in La Habra (Charles was great to deal with).

Sales tax is based on the sales price - dealers will put this down as the actual price you pay - private sellers seemed less concerned. When its 9% of the price this can amounts many thousands of dollars.

Insurance - compared Progressive with Good Sam (which uses GMAC + 3 other agencies). The prices were pretty close but Good Sam seemed more understanding about how long we were travelling for and living in the RV, and they didn't care which state we stored the RV in over winter. Progressive did need to know where it was going to be stored - and at that time we really didn't know ourselves. Progressive include Roadside assist, whereas Good Sam charges $80 p.a. Good Sam seemed like a much better pick for an RV'er - so we went with Good Sam for insurance and Roadside assist.

Thanks for your help in this thread - signing off, and now on holidays!

Fizz wrote:
Do you have a visa for staying more than the permitted six months?
All countries use this limit.

I was wondering this as well. Some of the commonwealth countries including Australia Canada and Britain are able to get 6 month B2 verbal or written visas for 6 months. After that I would be curious how he does it unless he leaves for 30 days or so. I would think it would be easiest to just go to Mexico or Canada for a while. Watching and learning.

Do you have a visa for staying more than the permitted six months?
All countries use this limit.

Gareth Jones wrote:
My wife and I are from Australia and are embarking on a 7 month grand tour of the USA this year :). I'd like to ask members for help / advice / experience on a couple of issues around registering the RV, insurance and using mail forwarding.

We intend to buy the RV in either CA, TX, or FL (in April) as this is where many of the used RV's are located. My current thinking is to register the RV in the State we buy it in for simplicity (even though some other states may have cheaper registration/insurance rates).

We won't have a residential/permanent address to use for the registration or insurance as we're travelling most of the time. Some of the mail forwarding services seem to suggest the address they provide can be used to register the vehicle and insure the vehicle, but I'm not sure if we are eligible to do so as foreigners. I saw in another forum where a foreign couple said the RV dealer they bought the RV from did this for them as they also had no US address.



Any advice you can give would be much appreciated - Thanks and regards, Gareth.

Another Aussie couple did this last year & I'm sure they would be happy to share some specific info with you.

They are Mike and Ruth Steele and here is their contact info:

CareAlert
Admin: 08 8251 1898
Fax: 08 8251 5694
Sales: 1300 75 85 95
www.carealert.com.au
ABN: 23 008 090 953
A Division of Safety Electrical Services Pty Ltd

There is a way to do it. Aussies do it all the time. We met an Aussie a couple years ago at a KOA. He had been in the states on a teacher exchange program and was then traveling around the country in a Class C. Not sure how we pulled it off, but he was doing it.

You will need a USA address for insurance and registration unless the RV retailer offers a similar service. I used Americas Mailbox in SD, and they have guest rooms. I stayed overnight and that 24 hours qualified me as a South Dakota resident, enough to get a drivers licence.

With the drivers licence and address I was able to apply for registration and insurance of my RV in SD. Most other counties and states required proof of residency and SSN. This was my work around as my RV was a private sale.

Good luck with your travels. Mine commence this weekend!

FWIW, registration by foreigners really depends on the state but I'm a Canadian and I've had no problems doing it on multiple occasion (car and boat registered in Florida several years ago, mh registered in SD a about 3 years ago and another mh registered in VT last summer). On the other hand, I do know that other states (e.g. AK) will only allow registration (even temp tags) by US citizens.

Driver's license is different and I think all states are required to have residency proof now but as mentioned, I don't believe it's required for most states.

Insurance is probably going to be the hardest one. I'm sure you'll be able to find one but from my experience, most companies will not sell you any if you don't have a DL from that state. Often, mail forwarding companies that do registrations as well (e.g. companies in SD) will have some contacts that will sell you insurance.

Talk about the proverbial can of worms :)

Getting registration for foreigners in most of the states is a losing proposition. My good mate from the Sydney area came over and obtained a South Dakota driver's licence (yes, with a c, not s) in order to be able to eventually register his RV there. But that required an I-94 visa rather than the usual tourist visa. And you'll need something else as well if you want to stay for more than 6 months. But I digress..

As an example, my home state requires proof of residency in the county in order to register a vehicle. Talk about having to jump through hoops in order to give them money!!

I certainly don't want to discourage you as others have apparently successfully done what you are trying. Just seems like they all disappear back into the woodwork when asked to elaborate.

Oh, and as for insurance, check out Explorer RV. They offer Coach-net roadside assistance as part of the policy.

Feel free to PM me if you need more info, assistance, encouragement, etc...

Gareth Jones wrote:
Thankyou to those for their comments about enjoying our trip!

I have just made enquiries at mail forwarding services in SD (and FL) as per your suggestions - and I'll sort through the options and update this forum with with which ones work for us.

Also, the info about some states not needing inspections is really helpful :)

Thanks, Gareth.

For us, Florida wasn't an option since at the time (may have changed since), because it was an out of state vehicle, they had to do a VIN verification on it before they'd title it and the vehicle wasn't in Florida yet for that to be done. SD just seemed like the best combination of not having to have the vehicle there (for inspection or registration), being able to do the registration by mail (or through the mail forwarding company which I think does it in person) and lower tax rate (SD was 3% - might be 4% now, I think FL was 6.5% (depends on the county))