Europe Tour! Visa for over 90 days?



skelonas

skelonas

New Member
Sep 4, 2005
12
0
0
I'm planning a series of bike tours through Europe starting in the spring of 2008. I'd like to do the following loops:
1.germany-poland-lithuania-latvia-russia-finland-sweeden-norway-denmark-germany
2. germany-belgium-france-spain-portugal-morocco-spain-france-switz-germany
3. germany-czech-slovakia-hungary-romania-bulgaria-greece-italy-austria-germany

I can't wait!

My main concern is visa requirements for staying more than 90 days. I've read that 90 days is the minimum stay in the european union for an american citizen with a passport, but I've also heard that they rarely stamp your passport, and that as long as you don't get into trouble, you can wander around europe indefinitely. Seems like a lot of people must backpack/bike around europe for longer than 3 months without working. I'm amazed at the lack of online resources for these kind of trips.

Any advice on this? Are there specific countries that would be more likely to give me trouble? I'm willing to take a reasonable chance, meaning if most long term backpackers don't have special visas and don't have any problem then I won't sweat it. I don't mind paying minimal fees/bribes, but certainly don't want to pay lofty fees and/or get deported.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Mark
 
No problem, come on over and stay as long as you like. No one will hassle you about a visa.
cheers
 
xilios said:
No problem, come on over and stay as long as you like. No one will hassle you about a visa.
cheers
Click to expand...
Is it just that easy? It seemed to me like it would be, but then from looking around online I've seen all kinds of conflicting information. I don't want to be restricted at all on my trip, and have saved lots of $ so I won't be working. Is the 90 days out of 180 rule for shengen counties enforced or not? Can I get some sort of tourist visa as an American citizen to free me from that rule if I need to.

Hasn't anyone out there (from outside europe) actually done a long term (over 3 months) bike tour of the schemgen region? If so, please share your experiences with border crossings, visa/passport issues, etc. I don't want to fly into Germany, tour for 6 months in the shengen region, only to pay a huge fine or be banned from europe for 5 years as I'm leaving because I was ignorant of the rules. I've read on wikipedia that starting in 2008 eastern and central european countries such as hungary, lithuania, etc are going to be part of the shemgen. Will this restrict my trip further?
 
There is no problem with EU countries. Not so sure about the new ones though. But I can imagine they are trying to keep people in :D
Seriously now, I live here (Holland and Greece) for over 20y and no one has asked me for a visa, and only a handfull of times they asked to see my passport. Their bigest problem here is illegal immigrants, mainly from Eastern countries.
I did however had to get a work permit but that too was no problem.
No disrespect to anyone else, but you can get prety far on a US passport here. To be on the safe side ask here >>>http://travel.state.gov/.
cheers
 
Hi Mark,
I ran into exactly the same question when I toured Europe for four months in 2005. After a hell of a lot of frustrating research, here's what I now know:
Most (but not all) countries in the EU are bound by what's called the Schengen Agreement. This agreement is the contract that allows for free (no passport checks) crossing of borders between Schengen member countries. Basically, all Schengen countries are considered "one" country under this agreement, and so border rules are relaxed. BUT, what this means is that the rules for travel without a visa, which used to apply to each country individually, now apply to the Schengen countries as a whole. So, where you used to be able to spend 90 days in France without a visa, and 90 more days in the Netherlands without a visa, and 90 days in Italy without a visa etc, NOW you can only spend 90 days total in all of these countries put together. Why? No one's been able to answer that for me, excpet to say that when they drew up the agreement they didn't consider that someone would spend more than 3 months travelling the European continent without working.

As of right now, Schengen countries (that are members of AND HAVE IMPLEMENTED the Schengen agreement) are:
And non-Schengen countries (may or may not be members, but HAVE NOT IMPLEMENTED the Schengen agreement) are:
Allright, so what if you (like me) want to spend those 4 months in Europe? You cannot leave the Schengen area and then come back - the 90 days is cumulative over a year and does not re-set if you cross over the border and back. You have two options.
First, you could get a Schengen visa, which will allow you to spend more than 90 days in Schengen territory.
Or, you can basically spend a maximum of 90 days in Schengen countries, and spend the rest of the time in non-Schengen countries (remember, certain countries can be part of the EU and still not part of the Schengen agreement). If you do this, ALWAYS HAVE YOUR PASSPORT STAMPED WHEN YOU CROSS THE BORDER BETWEEN A SCHENGEN COUNTRY AND A NON-SCHENGEN COUNTRY.

I DO NOT ADVISE ignoring the situation entirely, as this could set you up for trouble. For example: You have a round-trip into Europe that lands you in France, and you travel around Europe and spend more than 90 days in the Schengen area. Then you leave the Schengen area and cross into a non-Schengen country (like Switzerland). You won't have any problems crossing OUT of Schengen, but what happens when they check your passport when you try to get into France (a Schengen country) to catch you flight (borders entering and leaving Shengen territory often have passport checks)? Out of luck buddy, you can't enter Schengen territory for another year.
Also, I would keep in mind that there are always situations when your passport gets checked during your trip, whether or not you're crossing a border. Unless you want to get in trouble with immigration, I'd suggest keeping your days in Schengen down below 90.


Here's a handy website for you to check out if you wish:
http://www.schengenvisa.cc/?NS_cid=2

Best of luck and have a great trip!
 
"Or, you can basically spend a maximum of 90 days in Schengen countries, and spend the rest of the time in non-Schengen countries (remember, certain countries can be part of the EU and still not part of the Schengen agreement). If you do this, ALWAYS HAVE YOUR PASSPORT STAMPED WHEN YOU CROSS THE BORDER BETWEEN A SCHENGEN COUNTRY AND A NON-SCHENGEN COUNTRY."

Oh yeah, one more thing regarding what I said above. This is risky, and I personally would think twice before trying it on purpose, but there's a way to play with the system here and extend the time you spend in Schengen territory. Basically, your passport is your record of where you've been, and you can use this to your advantage. If you make sure you have your passport stamped when you EXIT Schengen territory, then avoid having it stamped when you re-enter Schengen, they won't know how long you've been outside of Schengen territory. Meaning, you can go from Germany to the Czech republic, get it stamped, spend 5 days in the Czech Republic, and if you enter Austria from the Czech republic without getting stamped and spend 30 days in Austria, once you cross a border into France for example and they check you passport, they won't have proof that you didn't actually spend 35 days in the Czech republic.
Again though, I'm pretty sure this is frowned upon if not downright illegal, but if you're desparate enough to try, do so at your own risk.
Personally, I'd spend more time in Eastern Europe and Switzerland to keep it legal. Lovely countries, lovely people there too.
 
Thanks so much for all your advice and information. Do you happen to have any idea how a Schengen visa works? I looked online, and no dice. The application is very simple.
http://www.eurovisa.info/Forms/pdf/SchengenVisaApplicaion_En.pdf

The relevant categories are:
type: long term or short term
duration of stay (enter number of days)
single, or multiple entries
purpose of travel: tourism, business, visit to family or friends, cultural/sports, official, medical reasons, or other (specify)
Name of host business or host person, or hotel address
Who is supporting travel
Means of support

Everywhere online about schengen visas referrs to short term (same as US travel without a visa, 90 out of 180, etc) for citizens who need a visa (from Iran for example). No reference to long term stay. I've saved some $ so can show easily that I can support myself, and have a friend in Germany. Any idea whether I can just apply for 180 days in the schengen based upon all this and be good to go? If I was going this summer, I probably would just go and do what you suggest, staying in western Europe only for 90 days, but next summer most of the other EU countries will also be part of the schengen agreement in terms of the 90 out of 180 deal (according to wikipedia). Thanks again for any help anyone can provide.

Mark

blackbird05 said:
Hi Mark,
I ran into exactly the same question when I toured Europe for four months in 2005. After a hell of a lot of frustrating research, here's what I now know:
Most (but not all) countries in the EU are bound by what's called the Schengen Agreement. This agreement is the contract that allows for free (no passport checks) crossing of borders between Schengen member countries. Basically, all Schengen countries are considered "one" country under this agreement, and so border rules are relaxed. BUT, what this means is that the rules for travel without a visa, which used to apply to each country individually, now apply to the Schengen countries as a whole. So, where you used to be able to spend 90 days in France without a visa, and 90 more days in the Netherlands without a visa, and 90 days in Italy without a visa etc, NOW you can only spend 90 days total in all of these countries put together. Why? No one's been able to answer that for me, excpet to say that when they drew up the agreement they didn't consider that someone would spend more than 3 months travelling the European continent without working.

As of right now, Schengen countries (that are members of AND HAVE IMPLEMENTED the Schengen agreement) are:
And non-Schengen countries (may or may not be members, but HAVE NOT IMPLEMENTED the Schengen agreement) are:
Allright, so what if you (like me) want to spend those 4 months in Europe? You cannot leave the Schengen area and then come back - the 90 days is cumulative over a year and does not re-set if you cross over the border and back. You have two options.
First, you could get a Schengen visa, which will allow you to spend more than 90 days in Schengen territory.
Or, you can basically spend a maximum of 90 days in Schengen countries, and spend the rest of the time in non-Schengen countries (remember, certain countries can be part of the EU and still not part of the Schengen agreement). If you do this, ALWAYS HAVE YOUR PASSPORT STAMPED WHEN YOU CROSS THE BORDER BETWEEN A SCHENGEN COUNTRY AND A NON-SCHENGEN COUNTRY.

I DO NOT ADVISE ignoring the situation entirely, as this could set you up for trouble. For example: You have a round-trip into Europe that lands you in France, and you travel around Europe and spend more than 90 days in the Schengen area. Then you leave the Schengen area and cross into a non-Schengen country (like Switzerland). You won't have any problems crossing OUT of Schengen, but what happens when they check your passport when you try to get into France (a Schengen country) to catch you flight (borders entering and leaving Shengen territory often have passport checks)? Out of luck buddy, you can't enter Schengen territory for another year.
Also, I would keep in mind that there are always situations when your passport gets checked during your trip, whether or not you're crossing a border. Unless you want to get in trouble with immigration, I'd suggest keeping your days in Schengen down below 90.


Here's a handy website for you to check out if you wish:
http://www.schengenvisa.cc/?NS_cid=2

Best of luck and have a great trip!
Click to expand...
 
Hey Mark,
Unfortunately, you've asked a question I don't know the answer to, as I've never applied for a Schengen visa. However, I've looked into the implementation of Schengen rules for the new member countries (eastern Europe) and it seems like the deadline has been pushed back for some of them (Czech Republic at least), to late 2009.
http://www.schengen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15
Take a look, call some embassies and hopefully they'll be able to provide you with a straight answer as to when exactly the new member countries will have the Schengen treaty implemented...
Good luck, and let me know what you find out!
 
On an added note, the more articles I read on this the more conflicting information I run into, so I'd DEFINITELY suggest talking to someone from an embassy.
Good luck!
 
Thanks so much for all your help with this. I'll be sure to post info on the logistics of obtaining a long term shengen visa if I'm able to figure it out. Thanks for the article on the eastern european countries- that will make my trip workable even if I can't get a long term visa for western europe.

blackbird05 said:
On an added note, the more articles I read on this the more conflicting information I run into, so I'd DEFINITELY suggest talking to someone from an embassy.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

denaldi
10 days in Europe tour options
Replies
2
Views
897
Touring and recreational cycling
vspa
vspa
FixAroundEurope
Europe Tour
Replies
3
Views
867
Touring and recreational cycling
vspa
vspa
harald
Europe tour suggestions
Replies
3
Views
2K
Touring and recreational cycling
Miles2go
Miles2go
Aph_7
Europe tour
Replies
0
Views
1K
Touring and recreational cycling
Aph_7
Aph_7
less'go
Mike's bike tour's in Europe
Replies
1
Views
3K
Touring and recreational cycling
Greyfox10025
Greyfox10025
Top Bottom Back