Planning a One Year European Adventure
 

Concept: Take early retirement and spend at least year in Europe living in England, Holland, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Italy.

Personal Background: mid-fifties couple in good health and physically fit with prior experience with independent travel to Europe.

Interests: history, art, photography, cooking, meeting new people and learning new customs, poking around markets, museums, churches, department/food stores, and hiking. Like to picnic and eat at moderate restaurants ($10-20 per person without wine).

Assumptions: Use public transportation most of the time, but occasionally rent a car. Arrive in Europe in April and leave in Nov. Move from north (England) to south (Italy). Will have $8,000 a month to spend in Europe.

Courses of Action: Thinking about the options listed below, but are open to modifications and other ideas.

Option A: Stay in apartments for a month at a time in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Heidelberg, Prague, Florence and Rome. Take daytrips to see small towns and enjoy the countryside.

Option B: Stay in hotels for one to two weeks at a time in the large cities in Option A, but also add additional “regional” cities in each Option A country.

Option C: Stay for a month in an apartment in some cities and for a week or two in hotels in other cities.

Concerns: Having enough money to cover our expenses. Becoming bored if we stay for a month at each location. Becoming “burnt out”. Knowing how much time is required to plan such an undertaking.

We would appreciate feedback from people who have done something similar or are kicking around such an idea. Looking for recommendations on hotels/apartments, planning resources, ways to cut expenses and pace ourselves, and fun things to do.

I just had posters regret - half of me says reduce the number of places we could visit and the other half says add more!

I think option A sounds like a dream. I bet you'll be amazed at how fast the year goes.

Hi NorthShore. Where do you live? If in Europe I think your plan is workable. But if you live in the US are you aware that you can only stay in Europe for 90 days without a visa?

As often happens LoveItaly beat me to it(!) my first question was about what kind of paperwork is needed to stay in Europe for an entire year. Clearly you'd need more than the 90 days typically allowed tourists.

I know I would not get bored myself, it would be a dream come true. But for me to avoid burnout, staying in fewer places for a longer period of time would be more interesting and suit my personality.

LoveItaly, OMG - I thought it was 90 days in each country. I must start a detailed planning checklist!

My idea for you would be to find the "center of gravity", more or less equidistant to all your desired destinations. Somewhere in mid-Europe.

Then find an attractive spot near to that "center" that would afford you easy access to air and rail transportation in any direction.

Then search for a location where you can rent an economical apartment and thereby set up a home-away-from-home.

If you rent apartments I believe an $8000/month budget is generous. Should it prove tight once you are underway, simply staying put in one place and poking around there, cooling it on daytrips, and using hotels sparingly could easily stretch those funds even further.

Hi NorthShore, didn't mean to bust your bubble! But gather you are an American citizen from your last comment. No, it is not 90 days in each European country. It is 90 days total unless you have a special visa. I am not all that up on how you get that but you need to do some very indepth investigations for sure.

Personally I would love to spend a year in Europe so I sure understand your dream.

May I also suggest that you talk to your accountant (tax situation etc. although since it does not sound like you will be working in Europe that will probably not be a problem).

Please let us know how your venture goes - I am sure there are other's here on Fodor's that have the same idea you do. And my very best wishes to you with your venture.

P.S. Hey Suze, sometimes you are ahead of me, LOL ;;)

I thought maybe we could rent small apartments for $2500 to $3000 a month in Paris and Rome. A friend suggested staying outside the city and taking the subway in each day, but I'm afraid that would get old. Still, it might be worth it if the rent were considerable cheaper.

Not for me it wouldn't (be worth it to stay in the outskirts). I'd rather rent a smaller place or stay a shorter time then have to commute on my vacation!

This is a special situation which allows us to do this big adventure.

We plan to downsize by selling our house, getting rid of lots of furniture, china, and garage stuff, store the "can't part with' items and giving our old clunker to charity.

We hope to assume a simple life and focus on doing things instead of having things.

I think you're on the right track. We went to Europe for five months when we first retired. We traveled a whole lot -- mainly on a three month Eurrail pass and mostly did a lot of three night stops. We started in Scandinavia for about 6 weeks, worked our way through Netherlands, Germany, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Switzerland, and then ended in Paris.

Since that time we've gotten into a habit of more one week stays and more recently have started renting apartments. You're right that such moves will save you money.

But we've never regretted covering so much ground on our first big European trip. It gave us a lot of places we knew we'd want to return to and we have. Although we had been on a couple of two week trips to Europe, we were hardly what you'd call experienced European travelers.

Bored? On that trip as we were heading home we asked each other "are you ready to go home?" and we answered each other, "NO!"

The concern about 90 day stay is unwarranted. UK and Czech Rep. are not part of the Shengen visa agreement, so if the OP plans it right there will be no problems. On the other hand, US requires their citizens to report back home for at least 1 night every 6 or 9 months (not sure about that), so the OP should look into it before disappearing for a year.

I could be totally wrong on both issues.

Have a great and safe 4th!!!

Thanks, I think I can overcome the visa issue.

What other areas should I be concerned about?

Hello NorthShore, your idea is beautiful and as I said earlier I sure understand your dream. May I suggest that you do some good and serious investigating about this venture before you make any definate plans. I am sure you will.

People here, including me, can tell you what they "think they know" but you need hard cold facts. I know for a fact that I cannot legally stay in Italy for over 90 days. But you have a whole different situation. So take the time and check everything out. And my best wishes to you.

Go for it! Get some good maps and learn the train system.

I'd pick option C. One month in London, Paris, Prague and Rome. Two week stays in Amsterdam, Florence,
Vienna.

I'll think about it some more and give you some suggestions on daytrips a little later.

Ask underhill about the south of france.

Concerns? Having too much fun and overstaying your visa!

Visas for Europe? That is news to me! Given that most of the time when you land in Europe nobody looks at or stamps your passport, how would they tell how long you have been there? I travel on an Australian passport, and it has been about 20 years since I had to get a visa for France (it was the only European country requiring one). Maybe it is different for people travelling on an American passport?

Hi Nicol, for American citizens we are legally allowed to stay for a maximum of 90 days in Italy or other countries in the Shengan (or however you spell it) countries. Otherwise we are suppose to legally get a visa. I am not sure about the UK etc.

If you're American or Australian, you can stay in the Schengen area without a visa for only 90 days in any 180 unless you also carry a passport of an EU nation. You can stay in the UK (which keeps out of xenophobic cartels like this Schengen nonsense) for six months without a visa, and subsequent re-entry is generally given automatically unless you look as if you're trying to live here forever.

So in a year, you can stay visa-free in the Schengen area for only 180 days. Unless you want to spend all the other 185 in Britain and Czech, you need to get an extended-stay visa for Schengen. You have to apply for this at the embassy or consulate of the country you're planning to spend most time in - in your case apparently Italy.

If the Italians give you a year's visa (and you need to talk to the Italian diplomats about that, not posters on this board), you'll normally be able to travel unmolested to the other Schengen countries for the whole of that period.

Don't be misled by people telling you their passports are never looked at. It really is virtually impossible to get into the Schengen area without your passport being examined - though for a small fee, I'll tell you about the unpatrolled hiking routes between Switzerland and Italy - and it's absolutely impossible to evade passport examination if arriving from outside the area by air, Eurostar or channel ferry.