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Do I Need a Schengen Visa To Travel to Countries in Europe? — Visa Requirement Questions Answered

What is the Schengen Agreement?

“The Schengen Agreement is a treaty signed in 1985, in Schengen, Luxembourg, between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. The Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement supplemented it 5 years later, providing for the removal of systematic border controls between the participating countries.” Schengen Agreement

Purpose of Schengen Agreement

“Before the implementation of the Schengen Agreement, most borders in Western Europe were patrolled and a vast network of border posts existed around the continent, to check the identity and entitlement of people wishing to travel from one country to another. Visa requirements also varied and the possessors of visas to visit one European country would not necessarily be entitled to visit others without separate visas.

Since the implementation of the Schengen rules, border posts have been closed (and often entirely removed) between participating countries. The Schengen Borders Code requires participating states to remove all obstacles to free traffic flow at internal borders.Thus, road, rail and air passengers no longer have their identity checked by border guards when crossing borders (however, security controls by carriers are still permissible). Visitors to Schengen countries can receive a Schengen Visa which entitles them to travel freely throughout the Schengen Area.” Rules Concerning Border Controls – Travel Without Internal Borders

“Travelling in Europe has been simplified with the introduction of the Schengen visa. As a visitor to the Schengen area, you will enjoy the many advantages of this unified visa system. Generally speaking with a Schengen visa, you may enter one country and travel freely throughout the Schengen region during the validity of the visa. Internal border controls are limited with no or few stops and checks.” The Schengen Office

If you require a Schengen Visa you need to apply for one before traveling.

List of Countries in Europe part of Schengen Agreement

The Schengen Area currently consists of twenty-five states and two cooperating countries which maintain internal borders. All but three* Schengen states are members of the European Union.

Do I Need a Schengen Visa to Travel to A Particular Country in Europe?

The European Union issues two lists regarding visas: a white list of countries whose nationals do not require visas and a black list of countries whose nationals do. Visa-exempt nationals are entitled to enter and remain in the Schengen Area for up to three months within half a year. Most signatory states do not allow these visa-exempt nationals to carry out remunerative activities during this period.

For a list of countries of which citizens are able to travel to Europe without requiring a visa, see Summary of Visa-Free Travel to Europe (sorted by country).

Do I Need A Visa if I’m Visiting From/To A Certain Country?

SkyTeam has a useful Visa Requirement Information check. You input your nationality, transit points, countries visited in the last six day, destination and embarkation point. It also includes a handy health information section informing on whether vaccinations are required before visiting a country.

Important Note

For the latest, most reliable information and travel advice, always check with your embassy before traveling. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information here.

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• Europe Travel Guide Book Recommendations
• £1 Rooms in UK — Hoxton Hotel
• Fly Europe for £1 — Ryanair
• 2 for 1 Hotel Offers — Lastminute
• Ryanair £10 Flight Fare Sale Ending Soon

Europe Travel Guide Book Recommendations

When we began planning for our trip to Europe, we literally had no idea where to start. This travel guide — Europe (DK Eyewitness Travel Guides) –came to the rescue. It highlights the best of European cities with features such as top places of interest with 3-d cross-sections of selected buildings.  As with other DK books, this guide is packed with beautiful photographs, maps and illustrations so let your eyes lead you.

Though expectedly not as comprehensive as guide books written specifically for a country or city, this book has helped us pin down the cities we’d like to explore in western Europe, which is the focus of this book. For our trip, we used this book to narrow down the places of interest we’d like to explore and then get the city or country guides for places we planned to stay on for more than 2 days.

For our trip, we used the above-mentioned extensively plus the following:

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Series

The DK series will always have the edge for us because of its infographics-heavy explanations, which we are a sucker for. We also believe that travel is a feast for the eyes as much as anything else and the books do deliver in this sense.
London,Great Britain
The Netherlands(stunning infographics and informational walking tour recommendations here)
Germany(we only visited Rothenburg ob der Tauber, but this book was useful nonetheless)
Vienna(really wished there was one for Innsbruck, Austria!)
Switzerland (the book did not capture the absolute beauty of the alpine countryside, but then again who can?)
Paris,France
Florence & Tuscany,Venice & the Veneto,Rome, Italy (spent the most time in this country)
Prague,Czech and Slovak Republics

Rick Steves

Rick Steves’ series feature great little tips and tricks to use for your travel in Europe. His guides read more like someone’s travel journal and are chock-full of useful workarounds and cute hand-drawn (though not very accurate) maps and tables.
Rick Steves’ Best of Europe
Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door: The Travel Skills Handbook

Eurail Guides

Europe by Eurail 2010: Touring Europe by Train
Frommer’s Europe by Rail

All the above, coupled with advice from friends, travel forums, individual city websites, planning tools (train timetable, ticketing and route finder websites such as German-based DB Bahn, Austrian-based OBB, Swiss-based SBB) and phrasebooks, provided us with most of the information we needed to relatively breeze through Europe.

We’d recommend Europe by DK Eyewitness Travel Guidesas a helpful book to use in the initial stages of planning as it has a enough general information about a place to get you started. Handy though a handful at 2.2 pounds, this was the only book (in addition to self printed guides from information collated from various websites) we brought on our month-long European trip because it provided an good overview and useful pointers of the places we’d be visiting.

Related Posts

• Europe on Budget Airlines or Eurail? Which is cheaper?
• Do I Need a Schengen Visa To Travel to Countries in Europe? — Visa Requirement Questions Answered
• £1 Rooms in UK — Hoxton Hotel
• Fly Europe for £1 — Ryanair
• 2 for 1 Hotel Offers — Lastminute

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