Can I Get Overseas Auto Transport Quotes with American Auto Shipping?
Here at American Auto Shipping, we can get you quotes to ship a vehicle from anywhere, to anywhere in the United States, and this includes overseas locations such as Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. If you didn’t know, or were unaware, overseas auto transport generally takes place literally over the sea – giant cargo ships have to be used to haul freight to island states and territories, and this is true for any cargo, from bananas to bottled water to vehicles. With vehicle shipping, it’s even more of a standard, because there are very few alternatives. You can’t drive a car to Puerto Rico, after all, and as far as we know there aren’t any commercial cargo planes available that haul around vehicles when there’s perfectly good cargo ships that can haul them for much cheaper.
All that said, we can most definitely get you quotes for overseas auto transport services, you just need to understand what goes into those quotes and what overseas shipping entails. For starters, overseas shipping to Alaska or Hawaii isn’t cheap because owning and operating a cargo ship or a fleet line is anything but. It’s also time-consuming, and a lot of your shipment is going to be centered around waiting. Waiting for your rep to find you a carrier, waiting for the vehicle to get picked up, waiting for it to get to the port, waiting for it to be loaded onto the ship, waiting for it to get shipped to the other port…it’s a waiting game. A very, very expensive waiting game.
But it’s worth it, at the end of the day, because without port-to-port auto transport services there would be no getting vehicles to or from Hawaii, or Alaska, or Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands or any other outlying U.S. territory. Of course, port-to-port shipping takes a lot longer than standard auto shipping services and they also work a bit differently. Let’s assume you’re shipping from Chicago, Illinois to Honolulu, Hawaii. Since that requires overseas auto transportation, your vehicle will have to be trucked to a port that sends cargo to Honolulu, which is generally Long Beach, California. This means that your vehicle will need to be picked up in Chicago by a standard auto transport carrier and trucked west to Long Beach. From there, it’ll be unloaded at the port and likely put into storage until its assigned cargo ship is available for loading and getting ready to disembark.
Once on its way, your vehicle will head to Honolulu, and anywhere from a few days to a few weeks later (depending on the company and the route) your vehicle will arrive at the port in Honolulu. Since there are no auto transport services on the island of Honolulu (unless you can find one yourself), you’ll have to pick your vehicle up at the port, which isn’t that difficult all things considered. It just requires that either you, or someone you authorize, be there at the final delivery location to receive the vehicle. You’ll also need someone at the initial pickup location in Chicago – this can also be someone you designate, if you can’t be there.
Overseas shipping services have to abide by a different set of rules than standard overland transportation because the cargo ships are going through international waters. Keep this in mind, because it generally means you can’t load anything in the vehicle if it’s being shipped overseas, not even clothes and linens confined to the trunk, as is generally acceptable for interstate auto transport. You’ll want to discuss this with a shipping agent to get the full run-down, and the best way to find them is to fill out our free online quote request form. If you do, you’ll get a free quote from us to ship your vehicle. We work with only reputable and reliable auto transport carriers. If you have more general questions, or need help getting overseas auto transport quotes, don’t hesitate to call us at 800-930-7417 toll-free to speak to one of our own agents today.
Since 2007 Dave has written all the content and blogs for American Auto Shipping and during this time added the duties of customer support and transport logistics.
He currently resides in Washington with his three kids and their mom and cat. A fan of Marvel movies and good stories, when not shipping cars Dave can be found working on his novel, enjoying a good book or playing some tournament HALO.
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