What do Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland all have in common? And who and/or what is this Schengen?

Basically, Schengen is a ‘visa agreement’, meaning when you land in any of these countries under one visa, you can travel to all, just as if you were in the original one. Think of it like the United States (in a way). Now as much as some states would prefer to build a wall around themselves, you can legally fly, drive, or walk between North and South Carolina without any additional paperwork. It’s the same in these countries. You fly from France to Spain and no one is going to check your passport and visa status.

Now … this is both a blessing and a hindrance for folks like me.

I’ve got a video in the works describing all of the main types of visas needed to travel in Europe, but the most basic one is just a tourist visa. And in the Schengen Area, it’s limited to three months.

So picture this … you fly to Greece and decide to stay for the entire three months. At the end you think … “I’d like to see Italy”, but you can’t. Not yet. Because you spent three months in the zone, you now have to spend three months out of the zone. Which means the ease of traveling between all of these countries is now excluding you from seeing those same countries. For a time, anyway.

For us, this is a concern. Because we’re going to be wandering for a lot longer than three months. And we’re not ready to go through the longer-term visa applications again. Not yet anyway. Those other visas also have some time limitations, only in reverse. But! You can get around this by simply traveling outside of the zone. Notice the UK isn’t in the list? Never was, even before Brexit. And they also have their own three month tourist visa, which means you can bounce all around “Europe” as long as you don’t exceed three months in any six month period in one of them.

Of course, you can also go elsewhere, but those time limits will still be in effect if you want to bounce within the zone. Sure, you can bend the rules, we did in 2017 by three days. But besides being disrespectful to the country that you are visiting, why take the chance on being prevented from seeing it again just because you decided to flaunt the law.

When our next trip starts, we want to spend a fair amount of time in and around Europe, so keeping good records is going to be key. And some planning is going to be necessary, but Europe isn’t just these countries. There is so much more than this list. But if you’re going to be traveling for an extended stay over there, be aware of the benefits and limitations of the zone.

Oh, and why is it called Schengen? Because it was signed in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. 🙂