Bringing a camper home from Japan

You don't fly over and haggle. You hire a Japanese export agent who does it all for you:

• They find the van — at the big car auctions or a dealer — and inspect it.
• They buy it in their name on your behalf (they hold the licence).
• Then they handle every bit of paperwork and shipping from there.

Worth knowing: camper vans sell for $10k–20k+ over the raw auction price — you're paying for the conversion (bed, kitchen, pop-top). And one detail to park for now: petrol vs diesel only matters if you register in California — not in Michigan or Montana. More on that at stage 4.

• De-registration + the Export Certificate. Your agent takes the van off Japan's registry "for export" and gets the Export Certificate — the single most important document. It proves the van is legally cleared to leave, tied to its chassis number. Everything downstream needs it.
• Onto a ship. It sails from a Japanese port to the US west coast — Los Angeles / Long Beach is the natural one for you. Either roll-on/roll-off (drives on/off) or in a container.

When it lands, a US customs broker meets it at the port and clears it. For a 25-year-old vehicle it's genuinely just three forms:

• CBP Form 7501 — the customs entry.
• EPA Form 3520-1 — the emissions exemption (automatic once it's 21+ years old).
• DOT Form HS-7 — the safety exemption (the 25-year box).

You pay 2.5% duty on the van's value, and it's legally in the country. (Quick flag: make sure your broker classifies it as a passenger vehicle — a "cargo van" reading can trigger a 25% duty. A camper conversion sits on the passenger side; just confirm before it ships.)

Clearing customs doesn't get you a licence plate — where you register it does, and it makes a big difference. Three options:

• California is the hard, expensive one — it won't take a diesel at all, and a petrol one needs an ~$8–15k lab certification.
• Montana is the well-known workaround: a paper LLC owns the van, no tax, no smog, permanent plates (~$1k). But it's only clean if the van really lives in Montana — California reads plates and claws back tax on ones it finds parked here.
• Michigan is the quiet winner if the lake house is a real home for you. No emissions testing, takes the import, cheap — and because you'd genuinely be a Michigan resident, it's not a loophole, it's just registering where you live. One visit to the Secretary of State with the import papers and it's done.

California instead of Michigan adds roughly $8–15k for the CARB lab — which is the whole reason to register elsewhere.

Skip the chains and the golf resorts. North of Grand Rapids, around the Huron-Manistee forests and the Lake Michigan coast, there's a proper run of character hotels — restored Victorians, lumber-baron boutiques, cool little harbour inns. The pick, closest to the forest first:

• The Ramsdell Inn — Manistee. An 1891 Victorian boutique in a restored lumber-baron building: stained glass, carved woodwork, 8 rooms + 2 suites, TJ's gastropub in the cellar, and a riverwalk that carries you to the Lake Michigan beach. The coolest of the lot, and the closest to the forest. Dog policy: to confirm.
• The Riverside Inn — Leland. A historic inn right by Fishtown, the achingly pretty little harbour on the Leelanau peninsula. Classic small-town Michigan on the river. Dog policy: to confirm.
• Hotel Frankfort — Frankfort. A restored historic hotel in a gorgeous Lake Michigan beach town, on the doorstep of Sleeping Bear Dunes. Dog policy: to confirm.
• The Village at Grand Traverse Commons — Traverse City. The design-y one: a restored Victorian-Italianate former asylum, now galleries, wine rooms and boutique lodging in soaring old halls. Genuinely cool. Dog policy: to confirm.
• The Perry Hotel — Petoskey. The grand old classic — an 1899 landmark on the National Register, a touch further north for a proper splurge. Dog policy: to confirm.