Europe Tour! Visa for over 90 days?

skelonas

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

xilios

No problem, come on over and stay as long as you like. No one will hassle you about a visa.
cheers

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skelonas

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?

xilios

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
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

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blackbird05

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:

• Belgium (26 March 1995)
• France (26 March 1995)
• Germany (26 March 1995)
• Luxembourg (26 March 1995)
• Netherlands (26 March 1995)
• Portugal (26 March 1995)
• Spain (26 March 1995)
• Italy (26 October 1997)
• Austria (1 December 1997)
• Greece (26 March 2000)
• Denmark (25 March 2001)
• Finland (25 March 2001)
• Iceland (25 March 2001)
• Norway (25 March 2001)
• Sweden (25 March 2001)

And non-Schengen countries (may or may not be members, but HAVE NOT IMPLEMENTED the Schengen agreement) are:

• Czech Republic
• Estonia
• Hungary
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Malta
• Poland
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Bulgaria aims to implement the agreement in 2009 [3].
• Cyprus
• Romania
• Switzerland

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!

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blackbird05

"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.

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skelonas

blackbird05

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?o...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!

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blackbird05

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!

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