I'm an American spending my retirement living in dozens of countries. There's one thing I wish I'd known before I started.
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- My wife and I have been spending our retirement traveling and have visited over 43 countries so far.
- As Americans, I wish we'd known how much Schengen rules could impact our travels in Europe.
- Now that we get the rules, we use a strategy to avoid overstaying our welcome in select places.
My wife and I have been living as full-time nomads since 2019 and have already visited more than 43 different countries.
Our lifestyle seems dreamy, but we've experienced numerous issues along the way — and many of the biggest have been related to visas.
As Americans, we're fortunate to have one of the strongest passports in the world, and many countries have not required us to present a visa upon entry.
However, I wish I'd known before we began our journey that there are some especially strict travel limitations in Europe that could complicate our plans.
Schengen rules make it difficult for foreigners to spend months traveling through Europe
Norm Bour
As Americans, we knew we could not spend more than 90 days in a row visiting countries like Italy or Germany. However, we soon learned that simply hopping from one European country to another in 90-day stints wasn't an option or workaround to that rule, either.
This is, in part, due to Schengen rules: Non-European Union citizens can only stay in the Schengen zone for up to 90 days within a 180-day period
The Schengen zone consists of mostly European Union countries that share similar criteria for visitors. Citizens within those countries can freely travel across others in the zone without being subject to border checks.
The Schengen zone includes 29 European countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
For many travelers staying in Europe for less than 90 days, these rules are pretty irrelevant. However, for us, this meant a lot of European countries were off-limits for long trips.
We knew that if we wanted to stay in Europe long-term, we'd need a residency permit.
After getting a visa proved difficult, we began planning our trips around the Schengen rules
Many countries offer multiple variations of residency permits, like digital-nomad visas or retirement visas. However, visa applications can be complicated and take months (or even years) to get approved.
At one point, we attempted to get retirement visas in Spain. After months of preparing and filing paperwork and spending a fair amount of money, our application has still not been approved.
Eventually, we decided to stop waiting for a visa. Instead, we would do the "Schengen shuffle," a common strategy among expats that involves strategically entering and leaving the Schengen zone without overstaying your welcome.
For example, if we've been exploring Spain and Italy for almost 90 days, we'd then spend months traveling to places outside the Schengen zone, like Malaysia or Bosnia, before returning to any country in it.
Fortunately, as nomads, we're very flexible — and we've gotten good at doing the "shuffle."
However, it's worth noting that the "shuffle" comes with risks, and violating Schengen rules can have severe legal consequences ranging from jail time and deportation to bans and fines.
Until we get a residency permit in Europe, we'll continue to stay on top of visa rules in every country we visit, as all travelers should.
After all, the rules can (and do) change often.
