Shipping Israel to Greece
Ok, so we (well Dawn) are behind on a few country blog posts, but we know some folks are looking for specific information on shipping routes so are jumping ahead with this one.
We had a fantastic two plus months on the Arabian peninsula and evaluated our options carefully in terms of how to continue our route east with an obvious American vehicle. Many fellow overlanders (mostly European and one American biker we know of) drove across Iraq to Turkey. We hear wonderful things about the people in Iraq and the experience but in the end, an abundance of caution prevailed and we decided not to. The political situation feels especially tense right now.
So for us, we chose to drive from Jordan to Haifa, Israel and ship our truck from there. We limited our time in Israel, with the country being at war. We wrote up a very detailed account of the shipping process below, hopefully it will be helpful to others considering the same route.
Shipping Israel (Haifa) to Lavrio (Greece) RORO
Summary of Key Facts:
Total cost for shipping and all port fee on both sides was $2219 USD
Ship goes from Haifa every Thursday, drop off the day before, Wednesday, in the morning
Confirmation of booking required a.week before shipping but no payment required until you drop your vehicle off
Vehicle available Sunday morning following shipping in Lavrio
In Israel, we worked with shipping agent Rasheed Mashal rasheedm@rosenfeld.net with Rosenfeld Shipping in Haifa. As far as we know, he is the only agent working on this route.
The ship is with Salamis Shipping, it leaves every Thursday from Haifa and arrives Sunday in Lavrio for morning vehicle pickup.
We crossed the border from Jordan to Israel at Jordan River. The crossing took four hours and involved our most intensive search to date (on the Israeli side, we had to unload the camper and carry clothes, food, pillows etc through a luggage scanner). Border is currently open Sunday to Thursday.
We contacted Rasheed a few weeks early, but he only needs confirmation a week before. No payment is needed for confirmation. The morning before drop off you email him copies of your passport and vehicle “license” (We had some back and forth on this, for US vehicles what he wanted was a copy of the “title” – basically proof of ownership, different countries have different names for it).
The morning of drop off he has vehicle owners meet at his second-floor office at 10am (there were three of us overlanders there). He processes you one at a time, then everyone goes to the port together. To find the office make sure you look for Rosenfeld Shipping on Google Maps. It is near the port. If you Google the address he gives you, there is another location across town with the same street name. When we were in Haifa mapping programs were being spoofed because of the war so navigation was very challenging. Most of the time Google and OSM had us pinned in Beirut. Parking is challenging near his office, we fit in the parking lot directly behind the building but we are 2.3m tall, bigger rigs will not fit, others parked across the way.
When you arrive at his office, he will need to see your driver’s license (we used International Driving Permit) and proof of insurance for Greece. No Carnet needed in this process. You will pay all fees to Rasheed– either cash sheckles or credit card. Total cost for us for shipping and all port fees was $2219 USD. This covers all fees on the Greece side too so no additional payment upon pickup.
Once everyone is processed at the Rosenfeld office (took a couple of hours) you follow a guide to drive the vehicles the port – very close by. Only one person is allowed to enter the port with each vehicle (we were not told this initially so two of us couples had to have the second person taxi back to the office to wait). Customs check was cursory, a brief look inside our camper. No questions about lithium batteries, propane tanks, how much gas in the tank, drones, food or other items. Going through the two stops (one of which was customs) at the port to drop off the vehicle took two hours. They needed passport of the driver and the vehicle permit issued to you at the border when you entered Israel.
Once completed, the guide from Rosenfeld drives everyone back to the office. We showed up at 10am and were ready to leave by 2:30pm. Conveniently, the train station is right across the street from the office. Trains run Haifa to Tel Aviv every half hour. We took the train to Tel Aviv, then flew Tel Aviv to Athens.
Due to some miscommunication with our shipping agent we picked up our truck a week late. If you want to leave your vehicle at Lavrio Port after it arrives, cost is €10 a day payable to the port upon pickup.
On the Sunday of our pick up, we were told to be at the Lavrio Port between 8-10am. We showed up optimistically at 9:20am. (We spent the night before in a cozy apartment in Lavrio that we would recommend - called “Harmony” on booking.com or Google. $75 for a sweet little apartment walking distance to the port, complementary bottle of wine and breakfast snacks included, lovely host met us at the door.)
We waited 90 minutes for the right guy with the paperwork to show up, but eventually it all worked out and we received our import permit (no Carnet for Greece) and car keys.
And we are back on the road! Time to explore Greece.
