Europe by Van

[shek]

Ahoy there, this is my first post here.

Anyway I'm going to be travelling through Europe next year with a bunch of friends in a van (Renault Master)
We're probably going to be starting off in Croatia and ending off in Poland. We'll be travelling through Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Czech Republic.

I was just wondering if people here had experience travelling through Europe by van?
What are the tolls and other expenses that you need to keep in mind? (Apart from fuel and van rental)
Could you give me an idea of what is required in which country?
I've read that some countries need a Vinjeta(Vignetta) but does this require additional road tolls? The whole point of using a van is that it works to our advantage, we wouldn't want to be paying fines coz we didn't pick up some document or such.

Also I've heard that cars/vans with eastern european license plates get stopped a lot more while travelling through Europe, is there any truth in that? It doesn't make sense that they would pull over a van with a certain countries license plate more than any other.

Anyway suggestions on travelling with a van and help would be useful. This is the first time I will be doing something like this and I just want to make sure we don't have any surprised while we travel.

[english si]

What are the tolls and other expenses that you need to keep in mind? (Apart from fuel and van rental)
Could you give me an idea of what is required in which country? I've read that some countries need a Vinjeta(Vignetta) but does this require additional road tolls?

Belgium, Netherlands and Germany shouldn't have tolls. Believe the other three have Vinjeta, and you don't pay additional tolls.

The whole point of using a van is that it works to our advantage, we wouldn't want to be paying fines coz we didn't pick up some document or such.

I have no idea how having a van would do that. Quite the opposite and vans would receive higher fines.

Also I've heard that cars/vans with eastern european license plates get stopped a lot more while travelling through Europe, is there any truth in that? It doesn't make sense that they would pull over a van with a certain countries license plate more than any other.

Yes it absolutely does. Other than Belgium and Italy, E Europe has much lower standards of driving compared to the West. E Europe is poorer, and those driving on E European plates are more likely to not be travelling with insurance - that said, they will check all the documents as to your legality to drive in Vignette countries before you can buy the sticker.

There's also the rule-of-law issue: drug running, organised crime, etc - Eastern Europe is rather 'wild west' in comparison to the Germanic countries. But it is Bosnian, Serbian, Kosova, Albanian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Moldovan, etc plates that would raise suspicions of police in the west of Europe - not Croatian, Polish or Hungarian. Croatia is joining the EU July 1, so has somewhat more respectability (more than Romania and Bulgaria, certainly).

Being a van raises additional suspicions, like "are you hiding people in there as you enter Schengen?" and "Slovenia has a really lax border with Croatia... lets check that there isn't some immigrant smuggling from the Balkans). That you are from India (congrats on the Cricket - splendid implosion there, going from unbeatable at home to being unable to do anything but get England to have to play a 2nd innings ) will add to that problem, especially when you stop at borders to buy vignettes. You are an outside-Schengen guy, on outside-Schengen plates, in a van. That's a recipe for checking everything much more thoroughly if ever I saw it.

[shek]

Thanks for the info english

So Poland and Croatia have road tolls but no vinjeta system yeah ?

I guess I forgot to mention that we're travelling musicians with equipment etc, so using a van is a much easier(maybe cheaper) option than buses and trains. I know there is the Eurail which makes sense, but then travelling from each station to the venue and back will cost us. Plus we would need to follow the train/bus schedule and we can't really just drive out when we're ready.

We would have a friend from Europe driving us (we're asian and we drive like maniacs ) so maybe that would help. I don't really have a problem being pulled over as long as we have all the documents and papers, so we don't get fined and don't lose time.

Talking about documents to legally drive in vinjeta countries, are there specific requirements for each country? Or is it a standard throughout? Would be helpful to know what documents we would need.

Regarding cricket, I have no clue what you are talking about. I'm not very fond of watching the sport. I've never watched a full cricket match in my entire life, so apart from a few special matches I barely watch cricket. I just know that India are playing a test series