Beginning in March 2010, and continuing through 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014…
Europe,
with some of North Africa & Western Asia
We arrived in Europe in Spring 2010 with seemingly endless opportunities ahead of us and a multi-year time frame allocated to enjoy as many of them as we possibly could. Once a person is in Europe with a vehicle, the horizons are indeed a long ways off. In addition to the western countries such as France, England, Italy, Germany and the others we Americans typically think of as Europe, all of eastern Europe, Africa and Asia are now reachable by road or ferry. How can we choose which to visit first and how to proceed from there? Not surprisingly, we don’t really know the answer to that. If you come along with us over the next several years you’ll learn our answers almost as soon as we do ourselves.
As we wrap up our fourth year, we find that we have already visited thirty-five European countries, plus Morocco, Turkey and the Caucasus countries of Georgia and Armenia. Before arriving here, I’m sure we wouldn’t have guessed there were that many countries in Europe. As of this writing, we think we’ll probably spend another two years before we’re ready to move on to other shores, but, honestly, we don’t know. We’ve decided we want to see Iceland, and Russia beckons, so who knows.
When we first arrived, we began, of course, with certain interests and priorities; and also with one overriding imperative imposed on us from above that controls to a certain extent how we will plan our time. See the sidebar below on the Schengen Agreement for more information on this subject.
Below you will find brief summaries of each year’s journey
along with links to the stories and photos from that year.
In 2010, we traveled about 14,000 miles through twelve countries in just over nine months. We began with two weeks in Paris while awaiting the arrival of our vehicle. Then we spent three months exploring Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of France, Germany and Switzerland. In June we ferried across the English Channel and spent four and a half months becoming enchanted with England, Scotland, Wales and both Ireland and Northern Ireland. Come late October, the cooling of the weather drove us south through western France to Spain and Portugal where we ended the year in Lisbon, flying back to the US in mid-December.
To access all the stories and photos from our 2010 travels go to Europe 2010.
In 2011, we stayed in the south, once again visiting twelve countries while traveling 19,000 miles in just less than nine months. We visited nine new countries along with several carry overs from the previous year. We began the year in late February by seeing more of Portugal and Spain before crossing to Morocco, where we spent a thoroughly enjoyable six weeks before returning to see more of Spain and southern France on our way to Italy. We spent a wonderful month crossing northern Italy on our way to what would turn out to be a full summer and fall exploration of the Balkans, enjoying wonderful experiences in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia i Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia on our way to Bulgaria, where we spent over a month wandering around that interesting country.
Go to Europe 2011 to see all the details.
In 2012, we began our year in England at the end of March and flew home from Greece in mid-December. We covered a bit under 16,000 miles through a total of eighteen countries, thirteen of them new to us. We began in England, where we had left our Tiger at the end of 2011. We moved through Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands on our way to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. After a wonderful summer in the north, we spent time in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania before moving quickly through Poland, Slovakia and Hungary before pausing a bit in northern Romania. Then it was on to a couple of weeks of catching up on projects around the ‘house’ in Bulgaria before moving on at last to Turkey, where we basically ended our year, moving out to eastern Greece right at the end so that we could leave the Tiger and return for our annual few months in the US. As an aside, both Bulgaria and Turkey, along with other countries, stamp your passport indicating you have entered the country with a vehicle. You are not permitted to leave the country without the vehicle unless you have arranged to have it impounded in a customs facility and acquired the appropriate paperwork.
Go to our Europe 2012 page to see what we were up to then;
In 2013, we returned to Greece and during the course of the year traveled in thirteen countries and covered a bit over 13,000 miles. We returned for another couple of months in wonderful Turkey, then decided to go on to the Caucasus countries of Georgia and Armenia. We returned to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, eastern Germany and Slovakia and added the Czech Republic and Austria on our way south to Italy, where we ended our year near Rome.
Go to Europe 2013 to see where we went last year;
In 2014, we plan to pick up where we left off by visiting Rome, then move south to Sicily then north through Sardinia and Corsica to rejoin the mainland somewhere near Genoa. By then we will need to be moving north toward Great Britain where we plan to spend the summer months. When we return to the Schengen area in the fall we don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing as it all depends on which of the emerging plans for 2015 has come to the fore by that time. 2015 is looking just a bit wild and scary at this point so we still need to work our way through several options before deciding on a course of action.
Go to Europe 2014 in order to keep up on what we’re doing.
An added feature you may enjoy is our Europe by Motorhome summary, which covers many topics of a more practical nature for anyone interested in traveling Europe by motorhome. We’ve added new financial summary information and other updated information for 2012 and will continue to expand this page as we add each new year’s experiences.
The Schengen Agreement:
Along with the creation of the European Union with its open borders and the elimination of individual country visa control, limitations were put in place that regulate how long we may legally stay in a large group of countries rather than just one country at a time. Greatly simplified, what this all means is that as travelers who are not residents of an EU country, we can only stay in most of the EU for ninety days at a time before going outside the EU for at least the next ninety days. Fortunately, Great Britain, while a part of the EU, is not a part of this separate agreement so that makes one easy choice for us.
Other than that, we must head east or south periodically in order to remain in compliance with the agreement. Our options include countries in eastern Europe such as Hungary and Romania, Balkan states such as Croatia or Bosnia, or others such as Turkey or Morocco. We would want to visit all of these countries anyway, Schengen simply imposes some time constraints on our planning.
Further, we know that actual enforcement of the Schengen rules varies greatly from one country or region to the next. Even within a given country, enforcement may be lax at one point but strict at another, making for a great deal of confusion among long term travelers. Some do not regard the rules as likely to be enforced at all, while others take them more seriously. We know of some folks who have been stopped and have had some difficulty, while we know others who’ve never been questioned in years of travel in Europe. It is left to each traveler to determine how they will regard these rules and to plan accordingly. The one thing that seems plain to us from everything we hear is that Schengen enforcement is likely to become more stringent in future; not less.
For a much more complete explanation of all of this, Google Schengen Agreement and go to Wikipedia or other online sources. Here is a recent article a fellow traveler found that gives an excellent explanation of some of the ins and outs of Schengen.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain