Today I learned about an interesting little treaty known as the Schengen Agreement that created an essentially borderless region throughout the member countries – most of the countries in the EU. This makes border crossings much easier once you’ve entered one country in the Schengen Area.
That sounds good, right? Yep. So, why complications?
Because of one little fact: residents of non-Schengen countries are only allowed to spend a total of 90 days in the Schengen Area in any 180 day period.
Trip plan, meet wrench. My current itinerary has me spending somewhere in the neighborhood of nine months in this zone over the first year of travel. I guess I’m going to be spending a lot of time looking at maps in the near future to determine how I might go about visiting all the places I’d like to see while staying in these constraints.
This is going to be tricky.
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2 responses to “Ahh, Complications”
Is there an exemption you can get if you have a visa from one or more of the relevant countries?
Jon, since I’m likely to enter Europe via Germany, I’m going to look into getting their ‘hybrid visa’ – which provides a year in Schengen countries, with the majority in DE. That might do the trick. I’m also likely to contact the State Department and / or McDermott / Murray / Cantwell to see if any can intervene on my behalf.