Month: April 2016
Travel Resources
Everything I needed to know before traveling! This list is specific for citizens of the United States in relation to other countries.
- A list of Visa free countries, or Visa upon arrival.
- Staying in an area for more than a month? Try Workaway! Lodging and Food in exchange for honest work!
- Just passing through? Use Couch surfing to avoid hotel and hostel costs!
- Use Gmap Pedometer to track distance and mileage.
- If you’re just going to one country, VisaHQ is an excellent website that helps explain what you need to visit. They also offer services to get you there.
Important Visa Information for Europe
After a lot of frustrating calls to embassies for EU countries and mixed answers from all sides- I finally got an answer to my questions on how to travel through Europe long-term. Drum roll please:
…
You Can’t! Ta-daaaa
Unfortunately, you can’t as far as I can tell. If any country is apart of the Schengen, Agreement- The countries in Blue-
– they share one Visa. However, they don’t all share the same entry prerequisites. Let me break it down for y’all:
If you are an American Citizen (and some other countries, but I’m focusing on me here), you may:
- Enter the Schengen Zone without a visa for up to 90 days. You may travel throughout the entirety of the Shengen area wherever your feet take you. Yay!
- If you wish to stay longer, you must apply for a Long-Term Schengen visa which is specific for each country, not the entire Schengen zone. This means that you can enter, say Germany, for up to a year (or if you are a student, longer).
- But! If you would like to go to France with the same visa, well tough luck. You can’t. You have to apply for a specific French Schengen visa from your home country. Not cool.
In my opinion, this defeats the entire purpose of the Schengen visas. But whatever, rules are rules and I’m just a lowly foreigner, who am I to disagree? I’m nobody. SO! It’s up to me to find loopholes… as best I can. I have created this wonderfully professional photo to explain what I’m thinking:
I would spend 2-3 months in both Ireland and the United Kingdom because they’re rebellious and at this point in time unconnected to the Schengen Zone. Once I hit France though, I’ll have three months to get through it, along with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. After that, I can spend 2 months or more in Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine in order to spend the 6 month required absence to RE-ENTER the Schengen territory. I can run through those bottoms ones, and exit into the lower European nations. I can use another 6 months rummaging in them until I hit the 6 month mark for a second, giving me permission to obtain an additional 3 months in Schengen.
I would have to really book it to get down to the port and catch my ferry to Morocco, but I can do it. This isn’t ideal, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Minimalist Packer 