Hi,
We want to buy a van in Europe to travel around for at least a year. We are Australian. It seems that registering without a local address is a major problem. Does anyone done this or know of a way to do this? We have heard there are brokers who will do it for a fee. Any help appreciated.
Hi there. It seems you have two questions but I can answer them both in one message.
This same topic was asked in Adventure Rider motorcycle forum several times over the last years and what I gathered is that you should be able to buy and register and insure a van in the UK even if you are not a resident there. It would probably be a right hand drive but for you it might actually be a bonus, if you plan to ship it back home later. Besides, there is quite a big (VW Transporter and other) camper culture going on in the UK so there is a lot of vans to choose from.
It is also possible to buy a car/van from Germany and register it “for export” which would be valid for one full year. Those two, UK and Germany were said to be easiest as some countries would not allow registering van for your name unless you had a permanent address there. Or a really good local friend. I have no personal experience doing these.
One place to look for vans is https://www.mobile.de/?lang=en
Another one is https://www.autoscout24.at/
…and after I’ve typed those, I find out that apparently https://www.12gebrauchtwagen.de/ combines those two and some other German/Austrian websites together.
That being said, https://www.autotrader.co.uk/ us a UK site.
Postcode SW15 5PU is somewhere in London (who cares) and the search won’t work unless you put something in there.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?sort=price-asc&radius=1500&postcode=SW15%205PU&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=New&make=VOLKSWAGEN&model=CAMPERVAN&price-from=500
That one lists 70+ VW vans specifically marked as camper vans. I guess some might be under Caravelle or Transporter name too.
And an enthusiast site, their classifieds https://www.vwt4forum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=162
From there you can find self converted campers mostly.
If you would like something like a MB, Ford or Toyota instead… sorry, don’t have any ideas 
What else… use google chrome and let it auto-translate the german pages. Works reasonably well.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my question. It is appreciated very much. I will certainly look into all the links and suggestions you have mentioned. It’s so wonderful that we can get such great advice from so many contributors. Thanks again.