Risk Mitigation

Well that all had us feeling rather despondent. Between a torpedo to the schedule and then sudden uncertainty about vehicle titling and registration, we were stuck, silently wondering if we’d even be able to put this trip together at all. Normally the vehicle registration wouldn’t be quite so concerning, but we’re talking international borders here. And Washington is a whole lot more strict about this than California or our home states. Surely, someone has done this* before, but we couldn’t get good answers to “how?” Everything we looked into was anecdotal that we couldn’t find documented, or something the Washington Department of Licensing told us wasn’t possible for non-residents.

*And not even “this whole cheap car challenge 3,000 mile roadtrip.” Just “I don’t live in Washington but would like to buy a car there, and leave with it.”

Borrowing from risk management, George popped the sad balloon of our remaining hopes with “risk equals likelihood times impact.” Ultimately, we could probably talk our way through the border crossings… but the ferry terminal would be Canada’s judge on that. And the cross back into the US — they may be obligated to let citizens come back in but they have no obligation to admit cars they don’t like. And if Barney Fife of Yukon gets a bee in his bonnet about it, what’s the resolution to “I own an unregistered car that has been impounded in a foreign country for not being legal to drive in a that country?” The likelihood of actually losing the cars is ultimately quite low, but the impact would be pretty extreme. And Evan did get ticketed for it last time. So what could we do to fix that?

That left us with, as Evan put it:

1. Ship cars from the Pacific Coast Roadtrip (which we still have) to the start line, and back from the finish line.
2. Buy cars at home and ship them to Seattle.
3. Buy cars in Canada — but importing them into Alaska would be complicated, further still to re-sell before they could be titled in the US.
4. Buy cars in Oregon or Idaho, who may be less strict with plates.
5. Re-plan trip entirely to travel these dates domestically.
6. Reschedule and replan trip entirely.

Then he went to complain on the internet.

The comments section echos our sentiments: this can’t be that hard. And yet.

But he and George have also turned to Tulsa Craigslist and have started to like the sound of Option 2. It does mean a one-way ship, but it also means we can have some fun with it, too. And we would have home-based titles and plates on the cars, making the border crossings and resale super straightforward. I wonder what’s hiding on Austin’s Craigslist these days?