Traveling between countries
 

My husband and I will be visiting France, Belgium, and Holland this May. We are both American citizens. I read that we can travel between European Union countries without going through passport control. Is this true? Thanks for your help.

Karen, <BR>You'll pass through customs and immigration at your initial landing point in Europe. If you travel to members of the European Union, and you will be, you won't encounter customs or immigration controls until your return to the States.

Hi This is for Wes. I was under the impression that non-eu members will still need passports at customs. I realize that customs is not rigorous but I thought they would have either separate lanes for EU passangers and a cursory customs check for all others. I have been to EU countries in the past couple of years so I am just trying to clarify it for myself also. <BR>alan

We traveled from Dallas to Toulouse via Gatwick this January and never went through immigration or customs once (except as Wes said, on our return). In fact, at the Toulouse airport we kind of wandered around looking for customs, found the usual desks and discovered all the agents standing around drinking coffee. Things have changed a lot, we prized our passports with immigration stamps as wonderful mementos, now you get a strange look when you ask for your passport to be stamped.

I am so disappointed to learn that I won't get to collect stamps in my passport! It took me a long time to get my act together and begin traveling-- I always admired my friends' passports with their exotic and colorful stamps...and now --is it really true that I will return with the same, clean, empty passport I am leaving with? Sigh*****

You should get a stamp at the first EU country you visit, ie point of entry. Then you will get one when you return to the US at your point of entry.. thats two... now, we also got stamped when we entered Hungary which is not in the EU.

Margie, <BR> <BR>If you are traveling by car, I am pretty sure you can still collect stamps on your passport. At virtually every border (highway) crossing, you will still find customs officers, though it may mean you have to exit off into a separate lane, reserved for truckers/shippers/import/export companies. Although there are no longer border controls on lots of travelers and goods, there are still some controlled substances that require customs inspections and paperwork. and they surely don't want to be flooded by stamp-seeking tourists, I think you can generally persuade them to stamp your passport in some way. <BR> <BR>And I suspect that you can get post offices (with odd names? - - Bitche, France, for example) to put a cancellation stamp on your passport. I supposemaybe you could buy a pretty postage stamp there and ask them to cancel it - - or just buy a blank book for this purpose! (Now that I think about it, maybe postage stamps in your passport is considered a no-no). <BR> <BR>YKWIA <BR>

Within the Schengen zone (all EU countries EXCEPT UK and Ireland, PLUS Norway and Iceland; well, the Scandinavian group will join March 25, 2001) there is NO passport and customs control when travelling between these countries. You don't need to stop at borders and there are no customs offices anymore. You need to carry your passport when crossing international borders, but nobody will ask for it. Also, no stamps.

Hi I wanted to thank folks. While I didn't post it, I was also wondering. i have been only outside the EU countries while traveling the past few years and haven't been to western Europe in a while. i appreciated the answers. <BR>alan