staying a month or so in each place
 

In about five years or so, my wife and I may be able to start traveling for a few months a year, and going to Europe would be high on our list. I traveled alot in Europe in the 1980's during my high school and college years, but haven't been back. I'd like to explore the idea of slow traveling, and staying on one place for about a month or so, and then moving on. In such a scenario, we would rent an apartment, and enjoy the area. We could do side trips from our home base, and maybe even spend a few nights away from our home base. We wouldn't have a car, but would plan on doing quick train trips in the area for our side trips.
Some areas I've thought about to do this are as follows. Germany, the Munich area, good city to headquarter, and lots of close beautiful nearby places.
Austria, perhaps the Salzkammergut region. I loved the area in my last visit, only drawback is that there aren't too many nearby day trip cities outside of Salzburg.
Italy, I'd like to find a nice beach town to home base at. I wouldn't mind just hanging about a nice town with easy beach access for awhile. I did this with my sister many years ago in Calabria and had a great time. I'm thinking around the Genoa area now. Also, the biggies Florence and Rome are obvious as well, though not in the summer.
I've been looking at rental offerings on Airbnb, and the prices for monthly rentals look much more attractive than by the night or week. I wonder if anyone else has done this kind of travel, and what other regions in Austria, Germany, France, Italy or Spain people would recommend.

You will need to know about this if you are American:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_po..._Schengen_Area

you could do much worse than read one of two of the trip reports by Peter_S_Aus who with his wife has spent several extended stays in Venice:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...over-again.cfm

Personally, i feel that the stay in one place [or at a pinch two] using that as a base for further explorations may be more satisfactory that spending a month or so in several places; just as you are becoming part of the community and getting a real feel for the place, you're then moving on and starting again.

Munich would IMO make an excellent long-stay base - a most interesting city, very easy access to a huge number of other interesting places, and very good communications with places further afield.

Good luck!

I've only done a month in Paris and loved it. Can't wait to go back for another month.

When choosing locations look for places with plenty of things to do so you don't get bored. Small towns would be a non-starter for me. A town with beach access without a car could get dull unless it were someplace like Nice.

This is absolutely our plan too after watching hundreds of House Hunter International shows and seeing the cheap prices for furnished condos in many European places. After many trips to Europe, we feel its time to drill down, stay longer in one place and bike, tour, live and relax. Our plan is 3 places, a month each.

A town with beach access without a car wouldn't be a problem for me, as long as there with other towns/activities available via public transport.

I love the Amalfi Coast and stay a week in Positano (renting an apartment) each June. If I could not afford to spend an entire month in Positano, I would be happy spending the month in, say, Vietri Sul Mare or Cetara. A short bus ride gets you from either of these towns to Salerno. From Salerno you can go a myriad of places along the coast via train or ferry: Amalfi, Positano, Capri, Paestum, Naples, Caserta, etc. Plus it is just a 2-hour train ride to Rome. And one of the things that would draw me to staying in a small town for an extended would be the ability to get to know the locals.

Sounds like a wonderful adventure!

Snowgirls, unless your 3 months are February, March and April you can't stay a full month in each city consecutively. See the link Yorkshire posted.

Thanks for replies everyone. The Amalfi coast/Sorrento Capri region is very enticing for Italy. Found some month long rentals that were pretty reasonable on Airbnb in that area.
The Schengen rule is really irritating, though I don't know if my wife would want to stay in Europe more than 90 days anyway. If one got a residence permit for one of the countries covered by Schengen, would that void the 90 day limit for all the countries?

The Schengen rule is no more annoying than the US 90 day rule. And we don't have a hidden visa charge in the form of ESTA.

You need to make sure you have health insurance that covers you for the entire time you are in Europe.

My wife & I both retired in 1999 while we were 50 & 52 so we could travel more. We love France, and spend most of our time there. We typically spend 5 weeks in the June time-frame and 4 weeks in Sept in Europe every year. Sometimes (every third year or so), in addition to our June & Sept trips, we will take a 2-3 week trip to Paris or London just before Christmas, or an early Spring trip to Italy for 2 weeks. We stay in Gites while in France, and usually stay in one gite for 2-3 weeks before we move on to another gite for 2-3 weeks. We've rented 53 gites for 87 weeks, plus apts in Rome, Paris, Tuscany, London & St Tropez for 30 weeks.

After 15 years of doing this, we've found that it is nice to take 2-3 long trips a year (sometimes 4 - like last year) and then get home to familiar territory where we can:
- Cook in our own kitchen, which is more familiar and better-equipped than any kitchen we've cooked in while in Europe
- Shop at a top-end "home" grocery where there is more variety than in Europe. Shopping in French & Italian supermarkets gets old after about 7-8 years. Groceries in London are not that great. Even French farmer's markets are not as exciting as they were 15 years ago.
- No shower elsewhere is better than our own at home.
- Take care of Doctor appointments, re-order prescription drugs, buy clothes, and other life necessities
- Plan next year's trips to Europe
- See family & friends (and our pets)
- Take car of the garden/yard

This is a link to something I posted about renting Gites in France.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...e-web-site.cfm

Stu Dudley

Robin, if you decide to stay in the Amalfi Coast area let me know, as I have quite a few contacts there. It is an absolute gorgeous area, and the further south you go (even to Cilento) the fewer tourists there are. Cetara is a true fisherman's village and you can feel it.

you're talking in 5 YEARS, right? Why are you looking at rentals now? There may not even be an airbnb in 5 years!

<The Schengen rule is really irritating>

It is what it is.

And yes it's the first thing that came to mind when you posted about staying a month then listed 4 countries. Kind of important thing to know about, planning the kind of thing you are planning!

>>you're talking in 5 YEARS, right? Why are you looking at rentals now? There may not even be an airbnb in 5 years!

I agree. A few of the gites we've stayed in within the last 5 years are no longer available.

However, I think robincal is getting ballpark cost estimates to see if his plan in financially do-able.

Stu Dudley

The Schengen rule is really irritating, though I don't know if my wife would want to stay in Europe more than 90 days anyway. If one got a residence permit for one of the countries covered by Schengen, would that void the 90 day limit for all the countries?>>

a way round it is to spend 90 days in a Schengen country, then 90 days in a non-Schengen country like the UK; at the end of that time you can go back to a Schengen country again, should you so wish. so if you had 4 months, so long as you spent one of those in the UK, you'd be OK.

Yes, five years or so is a little early to begin planning, but I"m trying to get a ballpark feel for how things might work out. Last time I was in Europe, every country had its own currency, the Russians you would see were occupation troops, there was a border running through the middle of Germany, and you could ride the bus in Budapest for about two US cents.

Good to know about the 90 day rule and no problem- just do a stay within the time limit.