The New York Times reported last night that fully vaccinated American tourists will be permitted to travel to all 27 European Union member countries this summer, according to an interview conducted with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Related: Tips for traveling to France during Covid-19

No official timeline has been announced, but one could be coming soon — especially as “summer” officially begins in less than two months. According to the news report, it seems likely an announcement will take place once a vaccination certificate becomes available that is acceptable to both E.U. and American authorities.

According to the article:

“These discussions are continuing, officials in Brussels said, and it is possible that a low-tech solution would be used in the near future to enable people to travel freely on the basis of vaccination. For example, a traveler to Europe could get an E.U. vaccine-certificate equivalent on arrival after showing a bona fide certificate issued by his or her own government. The hope, officials said, is that this step would soon be unnecessary as government-issued vaccine certificates issued by foreign governments would be acceptable and readable in the European Union, and vice versa.”

Read the full article

So what does this mean?

A number of questions remain, all of which we’ll be following with keen interest:

• When will this new policy go into effect? Unknown.
• What about unvaccinated travelers who can show a recent negative COVID test result? The statement from the EU doesn’t address them, and seems unlikely to include them.
• What about children under 16, who are unable to get the vaccine? As children under 16 years old are also not given any of these vaccines in Europe, it seems unlikely that unvaccinated American children would also be excluded, but again, this has not been clarified.
• Will this policy be reciprocated? Will vaccinated European travelers be permitted to travel to the US? Unknown — we’re waiting to hear from US officials on this.

What can you do to get ready?

Get vaccinated: And obviously, if you want to have the chance to go to Europe this summer, get your shots!

Passports: Check your passport’s expiration date. If it has been sitting in that drawer for 13 months, you are going to want to make sure you are ready to go when the world opens up and your feel ready to travel.

Book those flights: We’ve already booked tickets to France for August, because airfare was low and the tickets fully changeable. We’d recommend booking flights before they get any more expensive. However, make sure that they’re able to be changed without penalty.

The post European Union to allow vaccinated American travelers this summer appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

There’s just one big question: Exactly how long can you stay in Europe with a US passport?

Here’s the short answer: It depends. It depends on where you want to go and what you want to do while you’re there.

For the longer answer, read on to see how you can take a long-term trip to Europe.

More articles and tips for traveling in Europe
• Planning a trip to Europe? Avoid these 10 costly mistakes
• How to plan a European travel itinerary that won’t leave you exhausted
• Pre-Trip Checklist: 10 ways to save time and money before you leave for Europe

How long can you stay in Europe with a US Passport?

Most Americans take off to Europe for a week or two for a typical vacation. But sometimes that just isn’t enough time to really enjoy your stay. Spain, Italy, France… these are all places where you could spend months exploring and still need more time.

But how long do the rules allow you stay? We have your answers below.

Schengen countries (in blue) are among the most popular in Europe for tourists. (Yellow countries are members of the EU that have not yet joined Schengen.) Map: Wikimedia

Understanding the Basics of Visitor Visas in Europe

Europe can be divided into three basic categories for American travelers:

1. Schengen Countries
2. United Kingdom
3. Non-Schengen countries

Each of these groups of countries has their own rules. Here is a quick rundown of each region and the different rules that apply.

Schengen Countries 

The list of Schengen countries in Europe includes the following 26 countries:

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Of the 26 countries in the Schengen Zone, 22 are members of the European Union.

American travelers (along with Aussies, Canadians, and Kiwis) can stay for up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa. For example, you can travel to France and stay for 30 days, go back home for 60 days, come back and gallivant around Italy for 60 days, then go home for a month and start the cycle all over again.

First, the bad news

If you overstay your limit, you’re subject to a fine and deportation and potentially being banned from future travel in Schengen countries. Northern European countries are notoriously strict on this, while the South and East are known to be a little more flexible if you don’t overstay by more than a few weeks, at most.

Either way, we wouldn’t ever risk overstaying the legal welcome, but it’s totally up to you.

… and the good news

You don’t need to go through any difficult processes or pay a fee to enter these countries as the holder of a U.S. passport.

Some more good news? You can break up your 90 days in 90 days out in a 180-day period however you like. If you prefer to break it exactly into 3-month periods, that’s your prerogative, but you’re also welcome to break it up into whatever size chunks of time you prefer, as long as you respect the 90 days in, 90 days out ratio in any one 180-day period.

Remember, entry and exit dates count as a full day, no matter what time of day you arrive or depart.

Need some help? The folks at the European Commission have a handy calculator that you can use to figure out the numbers as well as a Schengen map to help you visualize the countries.

The best news

The EU is working on something they’re calling a Touring Visa that would last up to a year for travels around the Schengen area and be renewable for a second year.

Need some tips on saving euros in popular Schengen destinations? Head to the links below:

• Budget tips for Spain
• Budget tips for France
• Budget tips for Italy
• Budget tips for Germany

The United Kingdom

Americans can spend up to six months on a visitor visa (automatically bestowed in stamp form in your US passport upon arrival). Note that this includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland–NOT the Republic of Ireland, which declared its independence nearly a century ago.

The bright side is that obtaining this visa is simple. You get off the plane, go through passport control in London (or any other entry point), and get your stamp. Be aware though, that this visa doesn’t allow you to seek employment, so if you’re on the hunt for work abroad, you need to get a work permit.

The not-so-bright side?

The United Kingdom is one of the spendiest places in Europe to travel. But there are plenty of ways to keep your expenses under control, including these articles:

• Budget tips for visiting the United Kingdom
• Visiting London: Avoid these 10 costly mistakes
• Budget tips for exploring Scotland

Double check the travel requirements before jumping on a low-cost flight in Europe. Photo: Riik

Non-Schengen Countries

Regulations for visitor visas in Non-Schengen countries vary widely.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Republic of Ireland, and Romania all extend 90-day visitor visas to US citizens upon arrival. In Croatia, visitors must register with local police upon arrival. Other countries, like Belarus, only allow visitors to stay five days (including your day of arrival and departure) without a visa.

For up-to-the-minute country-by-country details, go to the passports and international travel section of the U.S. State Departments official website, travel.state.gov.

A few things to keep in mind

Some of these countries require you to have two blank pages in your passport, and six months left before it expires. You may also need to be able to demonstrate appropriate travel insurance for your stay (read our guide about travel insurance); in addition to prove you have sufficient resources to support yourself during your stay.

Need some tips on getting the best deals in Non-Schengen destinations? Check out the following articles:

• Budget tips for exploring Ireland
• Budget tips for traveling in Croatia
• Budget tips for going to Bulgaria

Tips for Americans on how to stay longer in Europe for less

Go by train or budget air

It may sound counter-intuitive, but slow down and travel overland whenever you can. You’ll see more and spend less.

That said, if you’d rather flit around Europe on a plane, fly budget airlines into major cities’ secondary airports. Think London-Luton, Paris-Orly, and Venice-Treviso. Check for affordable flights with CheapoSearch.

Stretch your time limit out as far as possible

Our advice would be to slow down, simplify your travels, and head to more affordable destinations. While the UK is the best option when it comes to how long Americans can legally hang out and tour the countryside, our advice would be to work with the Schengen limitations to stretch your euros the furthest.

A sample itinerary for budget travelers

Remember that you can combine Schengen and non-Schengen countries to stretch out your travels. For example, you could spend 90 days touring Schengen members, then 90 days exploring any one or a combination of the cheaper non-Schengen destinations (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania) before returning to the Schengen Zone for another 90 days if desired.

A Schengen visa stamp from Iceland. Photo: Matthew B.

Ideas for traveling in Europe for a year or more

If you simply must stay in Europe for a year or more and don’t really want to worry about entering and exiting to hack the visa system, there are a few more options.

Apply for longer stay visas

Travelers who want to spend their travel time in one country can apply for longer stay visitor visas in France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Most require you to be able to prove you have sufficient income so you won’t need to work. You’ll also need insurance coverage, the reason for your stay, and proof of lodging.

Student and self-employment visas

A couple more viable options include a student visa or a self-employment visa. Whenever possible, students should check into schools in the country, and not study through their universities, as European institutions of higher learning are usually substantially cheaper — in the thousands as opposed to the tens of thousands an American school would probably charge you.

Freelancers should check out Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic for self-employment visas, as they’re thought to be among the easiest to obtain.

Cheapo bonus tip for would-be long-term travelers

Always renew your passport early and check the right box to have 52 pages added to your passport instead of the standard 28 pages — there’s no extra cost. It takes up a little more space but it’s way better than running out of room for stamps and visas and having to buy a new passport before it expires. (In case you didn’t catch the update from the State Department, you can’t pay to add pages anymore!)

Your tips for taking long trips to Europe

Have you traveled to Europe on an extended visit? Tell us how you did it and what our readers can do to make their own long European journeys a possibility in the comments section below.

The post How long can you stay in Europe with a US passport? appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

That Croatians raised a modest cheer at midnight last Sunday was perhaps the greatest surprise of the week. Croatia smiled and fireworks brightened the skies over Zagreb to mark the moment when the country became the 28th member of the EU.

Snubbed by Merkel

In fact, the crowds had been out in Zagreb much of Sunday afternoon and evening. There’s nothing like a good party to mark acceptance as member of a club worth joining. The great and the good from across Europe were invited to come to Zagreb and share Croatia’s moment in the limelight.

Most gave their various excuses. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yes, but then changed her mind at the last moment. This left a conspicuously empty space at the top table. German attitudes towards Croatia have cooled since autumn 1991 when Berlin and Bonn moved a little too quickly to recognize the fledgling state when it declared independence from Yugoslavia — so upping the stakes, some said, in Croatia’s vicious spat with neighboring Serbia.

Signing up to the European project

In the absence of Merkel, journalist turned diplomat Vladimir Drobnjak, who led the Croatian team negotiating with Brussels, was left to hold the fort. By all accounts Drobnjak did a grand job talking up the EU project as the accession hour approached. Folk in the square, ordinary citizens of Zagreb who have traveled in by tram from the suburbs to be part of the magic moment, politely applauded. And there was genuine good spirit.

Past or future?

But was that joy born of excitement at joining the EU? It was perhaps more a sense of relief that Croatia could now eventually lay to rest a few ghosts. In a quarter of a century, Croatia has reinvented itself. But the path of change has been a rocky one.

One by one key political figures have been sidelined by allegations of war crimes or corruption. For example Ivo Sanader, who served as Prime Minister of Croatia from 2003 to 2009, fled the country amid accusations of war profiteering. He was arrested in Austria and sent back home to stand trial. Last fall he was sentenced to ten years for taking backhanders from an Austrian bank.

Croatians hope that accession to the EU closes a troubled chapter in national history. But that does not necessary equate with unqualified enthusiasm for the great European project. Just after Easter this year, Croatians had the chance to elect twelve members of the European Parliament. Here was a chance for Croatians to help shape a better, brighter future for their country. Just a fifth of the electorate bothered to vote. To be exact: 20.8%.

The post Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Over forty European cities or urban regions have done a stint as Capital of Culture, with the city of Luxembourg (perhaps a little improbably) being the only place to have twice enjoyed the accolade. The second time round, Luxembourg shared the award with partner towns in its international hinterland.

Reaching beyond the EU

Usually only cities in the European Union are accorded the cherished status, but there have been a few exceptions. Reykjavík, Bergen, and Stavanger have all been featured. But EU magnanimity does has its limits and there has until now been no serious talk of giving a Russian city the title, which is a pity as the European part of the Russian Federation surely has a dozen cities which could easily cut a dash in the European cultural arena: Saint Petersburg and Kazan are just two obvious examples.

2010: Istanbul, Pecs, and Essen

Yet 2010 does see a bold EU move, with the cultural hand of friendship extended across the EU’s eastern boundary to embrace Europe’s largest city as a capital of culture: Istanbul. There are a trio of designated cities for 2010 : The two others are Essen in the industrial Ruhrgebiet of western Germany and Pécs in southern Hungary.

Pécs happens to be quite a gem, a fabulously sunny city full of hillside gardens, vineyards, and terracotta roofs. Whether Essen can compete with beautiful Pécs and exotic Istanbul in the culture stakes is an interesting question.

The city that missed out: Görlitz

Essen pipped another German city into the final trio, and we rather think that its rival, a city on the Polish border called Görlitz, might have been the better choice. But the selection of Essen does mean of course that canny Cheapos who head to Görlitz this summer won’t need to fight the crowds that will surely flock to Essen. Perhaps the judges thought, like us, that Görlitz is just too fine a spot to worry about titles.

If you do make it to Görlitz in 2010, it would be a chance to try one of our favorite hostelries. The Hotel Börse has an enviable location on the main square. Rooms in the main building are from €70, including breakfast. For those on a budget, the amiable host Georg Rittmannsperger can also offer rooms in the baroque townhouses opposite the hotel. Rates there are from €50 a room, and that includes breakfast in the Börse.

The post European Capitals of Culture: Istanbul, Pecs, Essen, and Görlitz appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

We have over the past twelve months spent time in and reported from some twenty countries across Europe. The year has seen a lot of changes. We are pleased to see some governments across Europe beginning to levy heftier taxes on aviation, and we hope that 2010 will see more following in their wake. Higher plane fares within Europe will be a big incentive to encourage more responsible traveling. Britain has taken a welcome lead in this. We applaud the decision in Scotland to subsidize ferry fares on longer routes to the Hebrides – another important step in encouraging travelers to think twice before hopping on a plane.

Over the past year, travelers have benefited from Switzerland joining the Schengen group of nations and Slovakia adopting the euro. Iceland‘s financial misfortunes in late 2008, with a slump in the value of the Icelandic króna, suddenly made the island nation much more attractive for travelers from North America and mainland Europe. In ailing economies in eastern Europe, and particularly in the Baltic States, tourism has been a key element in the fragile recovery now underway.

New travel opportunities

Citizens of some Balkan states are today much less well traveled than their parents. But that looks set to change with the new European Union visa regulations that came into effect last weekend, ushering in a more relaxed visa regime for visitors to the EU from Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. For Serbia, this is a tangible reward from the EU to the Belgrade government for playing the great game of European integration. Olive branches from Brussels are being offered to Minsk too, and we predict that 2010 will surely see some thawing of the relations between Belarus and the EU. That will perhaps in time make life easier for travelers bound for Belarus, which remains one of Europe’s most inaccessible and yet most intriguing countries.

Rail links and politics

A new train service would not normally be greeted as a major diplomatic event, but when the new service links Serbia with Bosnia via Croatia then folk do take notice. The Belgrade to Sarajevo route was severed during the conflicts of the nineties. Now it is back, with a very welcome once daily train from the Serbian to the Bosnian capital. The new service started in mid-December.

If train services are a mark of political cooperation, then we must mourn the demise of one of Europe’s key night train links – the daily service from Berlin to Kaliningrad. It ran for the last time ten days ago. The withdrawal of this train now leaves Russia’s Baltic exclave at Kaliningrad even more isolated.

Airlines that left the skies

Finally, a thought for all the staff and passengers affected by over a dozen airline bankruptcies in Europe in 2009. Casualties included the national flag carriers of Lithuania (FlyLAL) and Macedonia (MAT); discount carriers such as Sky Europe, Fly Globespan, and My Air; and niche carriers serving particular markets such as Sky South and KD Avia (with hubs at Shoreham and Kaliningrad respectively).

We shall be back next month, but meanwhile warm best wishes for the holidays from us both.

The post 2009 Retrospective: Highlights and lowlights of European travel appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

The country was granted permission by the European Union to make the switch during the summer of 2008, when the exchange rate was pinned at 30.126 koruny to the euro. The currency, however, didn’t switch until January 1, 2009.

In the months leading up to its circulation, Slovakia hosted Euro-themed events to raise awareness and entertain, and also pay tribute to the exiting currency. (Among these, chocolate euro coins were thrown to children, and a theater troupe staged a play about the demise of the koruna.  Sad clowns.)

What it means

The introduction of the euro in Slovakia could mean that Cheapos heading to Bratislava or other Slovak cities will notice restaurant prices and hotel rates listed in both currencies (euros and Slovak koruny), a trend that will last until January of 2010.

Others may notice that prices have jumped a bit. According to a piece in Slovak Today, consumer prices increased 0.5% in the 10 days following the changeover.

In case you’ve got a koruna or two hanging around the house, banks in Slovakia will still exchange banknotes through the end of 2009 and coins through June 2009 (although they may charge you for it!).

Need help with your own euro conversion? Check out xe.com to see today’s euro exchange rate.

The post Goodbye Koruna: Slovakia joins the euro club appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.