I have a 40 foot motorhome and am thinking about having it shipped to NZ for an adventure year.

Have you ever done this? Where do I start? I would love to get an idea of cost, hassles, licensing, insurance, etc.

I am Canadian, but I could get it to any port in North America, if that makes a difference.
I sure appreciate any advice!

I know of people who have done it with smaller vehicles asa temporary thing while doing round the world trips and I know it is possible to import vehicles into Australia from overseas but quite a bit of paperwork involved as far as Australia goes and I'd suspect also NZ.

You ought to go to www.customs.gov.au and you'll get an idea of the procedures that'll apply and you'll need to decide on what port you have it delivered to or to put it another way, some states may have easier registration requirements than others and that could determine for you best port for delivery.

For the state by state information just google up Motor Registration followed individually by Northern Territory, Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, and well might as well check Tasmania too.
Once you get it registered in one state you'll be able to drive it all over Australia.

For New Zealand , it is LTSA and www.ltsa.govt.nz the web site re registration requirements and also importing - http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/factsheets/44.html .

Normally to get a vehicle registered from scratch it requires what they call an over pit examination, a lot more thorough than just getting an annual roadworthy certificate and that may still apply.

As to cost of shipping, no real idea but I was looking a couple of years back when exchange rates were good to go to the states and get a motorhome, use it there and Canada, maybe even Europe before bringing it back to Australia and I for some reason or other had a figure of about $10,000 in mind re shipping and it certainly will not be all that cheap but best thing to do is just google up international shipping and pick a few likely companies and put in an enquiry with them.

I now just notice in jumping down from your heading you're looking at just NZ, and if so forget all the Aussie references, and for ports there it'll not matter, but Auckland or Wellington would be where main shipping goes to, maybe also Tauranga or Christchurch and NZ will also have import procedures.

http://www.vehicleimport.co.nz/ is one import agent in NZ and likely to be many as NZ does not have an auto manufacturing industry, but you might be able to get some idea of costs from sites like that and as they say up front they offer a pay for service if wanting to go further, certainly an agent at NZ end would smooth the process.

Registration ought to be cheap enough, insurance something else for it being a foreign vehicle they would look at any repair costs they could be liable for as being pretty high.
You could get some sdvice I imagine on all aspects including insurance from the NZ auto association www.aatravel.co.nz .

And then you'll find 40 feet is not going to go around a lot of NZ roads all that easy, lets say could be adventurous!, and then fuel at $1.50+/L or whatever, that'll be more than adventurous!

If you get serious about it and would want a smaller camper already over there, let me know, might be able to help.

Wow, I'm overwhelmed with all the information yo've provided, but moreso with your thoughtfulness in writing all this down!

Thanks so much, and yes, I will more than likely re-consider, opting instead to buy something once we get there.

Well let me know if you might be interested in a smaller very clean Toyota Hi Ace pop-top style unit.