How to Travel in Europe Forever

Have you always wanted to explore Europe, but felt limited by the sheer number of countries and the 90 day window offered by a tourist visa?  

Don’t be. With a little creative itinerary building and a bit of mad math, you can easily (and legally!) finagle a wander about Europe indefinitely using the techniques below.

Strategy 1: Move in and out of the Schengen Zone

This is the easiest and most straightforward option.

The Schengen Zone includes the majority of western and central Europe and binds it politically and economically. Formed as part of the Schengen Agreement signed in 1985, it abolished internal border checks and allows for free travel between member countries. For citizens of many countries, 90 days of visa free travel in Europe is allowed within the entire Schengen zone (so any single country or combination of countries from the list below) within a 180 day period. 

This means that for every 90 days spent in, 90 days must be spent out before you can return and start another 90 days without ever needing to apply for an additional visa. 

European Countries in the Schengen Zone:

*in Schengen, bu not in the E.U.

Not in continental Europe, but still in the Schengen Zone: the Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands

Countries In Europe Outside the Schengen Zone:

• Albania
• Andorra
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Bulgaria*
• Croatia*
• Cyprus*
• Georgia
• Ireland**
• Kosovo
• Macedonia
• Moldova
• Monaco
• Montenegro
• Romania*
• San Marino
• Serbia
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom**
• Vatican City

*EU member required to join Schengen but has not yet done so

**EU member that has permanently opted out of Schengen

Within each of these non Schengen countries, a 90 day stay within a 180 day period is permitted visa free. 

Therefore, you can spend 90 days in a Schengen country, 90 days in one of these non Schengen countries (or any combination in between), and then re-enter the Schengen Zone for another 90 days without treading on the terms of this agreement.

A sample itinerary may look like this:

A few things to note:

The European Union and the Schengen are separate affiliations. Many of these countries outside the Schengen are part of the E.U. 

Additionally many of these nations have the “official intention” of joining the Schengen Agreement, at which point this could all change. That being said, their intentions seem to be taking a fair while to materialize so it remains a pretty safe bet to plan travel around them as they are now.

The 90 day time limit is taken quite seriously. Because of this, I recommend traveling on day 88 or 89 to make sure you do not have any trouble at the border. 

Time limits apply to ANY time in the Schengen Zone, including airports. So if your initial flight leaves on day 89, but you have a long layover that kicks you to day 90 – beware! 

It is not unheard of for travelers to be deported for being a few hours over their allotted time while trying to transfer in country to leave the country. Don’t let this be you and plan smart.

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Strategy 2: Take advantage of bilateral agreements

When the Schengen Agreement was signed, countries had the option to continue honoring their existing agreements or negate them with the Schengen. A few countries maintained old agreements and in addition, other countries have signed bilateral agreements in the years since Schengen that operate separately. Essentially these agreements permit stays in the country that are counted separately from Schengen time and can allow you to significantly extend your time in that country. 

The details of these agreements are not widely known about today, and interpretations can sometimes be a little fuzzy, but here are the basics:

Countries with agreements outside the Schengen agreement with the United States:

Poland

Denmark

France?

“…the stay of such a person on the territory of the Republic of Poland always counts separately from stay in the territory of other countries of the Schengen area – where the permissible short-term stay in visa-free travel may already be exhausted due to exceeding the limit of 90 days of stay in the 180 days counted back, i.e. entry into the territory of the Schengen countries (resulting from the provisions of Council Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 of March 15, 2001 listing third countries whose citizens must have visas when crossing the external borders and those whose citizens are exempt from this requirement) ).

After re-entering the territory of the Republic of Poland, the US citizen always has the right to reside for a period not exceeding 90 days. Subsequent periods of stay are counted from the beginning and are not limited by half-yearly or annual time limit. There is also no limit to the repeatability of 90-day periods of stay of US citizens on the territory of the Republic of Poland.” Polish Border Guard

“Citizens of Australia, Canada, Chile, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the US can freely enter and stay in Denmark for the following periods, regardless of whether they have stayed in another Schengen country prior to entry into Denmark.” – from the Danish Immigration Service

Countries with bilateral agreements with Australia:

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, 

Lengths of stays permitted and specifics of use vary from country to country. More about Australian specific bilateral agreements can be found here.

Countries with bilateral agreements with New Zealand:

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland

Countries with bilateral agreements with Denmark:

Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, USA

Countries with bilateral agreements with the Czech Republic:

Argentina, Chile, Israel, Korea, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Singapore, Uruguay

How it works:

Given that all of these countries are within the Schengen Zone, it is important to understand that any time spent in these countries still counts as Schengen time. That being said, once you have maxed out your allotted 90 days, you can get another 90 days per their individual agreements. But to unlock these additional days, you still must leave the country and re-enter from a non-Schengen country.

Exit and entry can be by air or land, but you must be able to show proof of leaving the country before your 90 day Schengen time has expired. Ideally this will be via a stamp in your passport showing exit and entry. But if for some reason you do not receive a stamp, make sure to retain receipts of transport and lodging made outside the country for those dates to prove that you fully exited at the appropriate time.

From Poland the easiest option is to travel to Ukraine. Trains can be taken from Kraków to Lviv for about $30 and take 6 hours each way. Car and bus is also an option, though not advised for this border as the crossing can take much longer.

From Denmark, you may travel within other Nordic countries, as time spent in the Nordic Union counts towards your allotted 90 Danish days. Nordic Union countries include Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Finland.

A few things to note:

While you are perfectly legal to stay within these countries by their own terms, you will not be able to visit any other Schengen country until you have exited and stayed out of the Schengen Zone for a full 90 days. 

It is not advised to use this system for long term stays. According to the Polish Border Guard, you can enter and exit to reset the 90 day count indefinitely, though I cannot vouch for this personally as I have only used the system for a single reset (so 8 continuous months in Europe without a visa, 6 of which were in the Schengen zone). 

If you decide to stay in either of these countries for more than 6 months, applying for a residence permit will give you up to 3 years in the country and allow you to travel as a regular citizen. This can make life much easier than doing border runs on a 3 month cycle and being excluded any travel in the Schengen Zone long term.

While it is outside of the Schengen Zone, the United Kingdom is known for still enforcing Schengen rules. If you are mixing and matching these options to extend your time traveling in Europe, I recommend visiting other non-Schengen countries to reset your Poland or Denmark time than the UK. 

Visiting the UK shouldn’t be a problem if you are simply doing 90 days in Schengen and 90 days out, but if you are making use of any of the pre-Schengen agreements, and therefore will technically be running over the 90 days in Schengen, it may not be worth the trouble trying to explain how this is completely legal to a stickler at the British border.  

So, taking our itinerary from before, we can further extend to something like this:

If you have any questions about these bilateral agreements, contact the appropriate embassy (on either or both sides of the involved countries). 

While there is nothing published on the US embassy website about the Polish-American agreement, when I called the office in Kraków they fully acknowledged the agreement and further confirmed its basic functionality via email.

When in doubt, get support from your embassy in writing and save your hotel and transportation receipts so you can prove where you were when to avoid any issues at border crossings.

There are changes in motion to improve the E.U. border checking process via a new Entry-Exit System (EES). This system will more or less modernize E.U. border crossing to keep better tabs on the movement and number of days a non E.U. citizen spends in each country. 

Bilateral agreements are fully legal premises to stay in the countries discussed here, but given they are not widely known, be sure to have all your documents in order to back things up. But don’t let their off the radar status stop you from taking advantage of their great benefits.

Use them to get out there an explore even more – that’s what they were designed for (more or less 😋) !