Confused on visas

Since my wife and I were both born here, your situation is something I've never had to try to solve. If I did, my first visit would be to the embassy websites of the countries you are planning to visit. If the website doesn't answer your question, get a phone number from the website and call. Be sure whatever conclusion you come to is in writing - you shouldn't plan to cross a border based on what someone said.

I'm not sure if her permanent resident status changes anything except coming back into the US. I'm guessing she will have to follow the guidelines for anyone holding a Chinese passport. As I said, I haven't had to do it, so my guess isn't worth a cup of coffee.

Your wife will need a visa to enter the UK:
UKBA visa requirements.

The UKBA visas site has detail of how to apply:
UK Visas.

A UK visa will only be valid for travel in the UK, you will need to make separate arrangements for the rest of your trip.

The other countries will almost certainly require a visa for your wife. They are all part of the Schengen open borders area and have common entry requirements.

Your wife will need two visas: One for the UK and one "Schengen." Since you don't apply for a "Schengen" visa, you need to apply for a visa in the Schengen country in which you plan to spend the most time (France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany or the Netherlands.) That country's visa will be all you need for the other Schengen countries.

Upon returning to the U.S., she will be traveling on her Chinese Passport and must also have her green card. I'd also suggest bringing along a copy of your marriage license. (Not necessary but the more documentation you have, the better.)

All you need is your passport.

Thanks for the responses.

Frank that was what I had been told before so to hear it again is reassuring. Thanks.

Frank is technically correct, but as I have had some firsthand experience with this. I will add some practical info.

Like you, I am a US citizen (free entry almost everywhere); my wife is a citizen of Thailand, and travels with a Thai passport. She has a US "green card" (permanent resident alien). Same situation as you and your spouse.

yes, your wife will need two visas: one for the UK (expensive, and a real pain in the ass to get information about, IMHO - good luck), and one for the Schengen countries (inexpensive, and generally not a big hassle, once you figure out who to deal with). The trick is that the embassies and consulates of the Schengen countries sometimes interpret the process differently. For example, we planned a trip to Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria a few years ago. The rules say that you should apply to for a visa to the country that's your primary destination. The definition of "primary destination:" is a little unclear, but is generally considered the place that you will be spending the majority of your time. But if there's no single country where you will be spending a majority of your time, you apply for a visa from the first Schengen country that you enter. Our trip plans had us arriving in Amsterdam and wandering around BeneLux, into Germany, to Austria, back to Germany, back to Austria, and ending up in Germany. But if you counted the days, Germany got less than 50% of them. First I applied to Germany for the visa, they told me to apply to Netherlands. The local Dutch consulate said to apply to Germany. I said they sent me to you, and they grudgingly asked me to send them our itinerary. Now, I do pretty detailed travel planning - creating professional-looking (I guess) maps and schedules.

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I sent these to the local Dutch consulate, along with my wife's passport, the visa application, etc. Our application was rejected! They demanded to know what tour company we were going with, and wanted a complete list of all our hotels so they could verify all our reservations! As independent travelers, I only had a couple of hotels booked,and was not on an organized tour (they thought the maps & schedule I had whipped up came from our tour's brochure). I called them and they were skeptical, again suggesting that I should go ask the Germans. I explained that we were traveling on our own, and would be making hotel arrangements as we went along, day by day. Furthermore, I reminded the nice lady that the German consulate had told us to apply to the Dutch consulate because "we weren't spending enough time in Germany."

Honestly, I got the impression that both consulates were looking for an excuse to dump us off on someone else, and they just didn't want too be bothered.

I re-submitted the visa application to the Dutch consulate, this time I left out all my fancy maps and calendars, and included ONLY the absolute minimum information that was specified on on the visa application. I scrapped my detailed itinerary, and just gave a general list of days in each country, making sure that the Netherlands got an equal number of days as Germany (Netherlands 5 days, Belgium 5 days, Luxembourg 5 days, Austria 5 days...never mind that this was a complete lie, and we did not intend to spend 5 days in Luxembourg...)). They did say that you had to provide a hotel in your arrival country, so I gave them the contact info for our hotel in Amsterdam and just indicated that we would be reserving hotels each day as we went along.

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That apparently was enough, or else we just wore them down. They set up an appointment and we went in to their office for an interview (an interview?! sheesh!). The lady there was pretty cold and bureaucratic at first, eventually when we had apparently satisfied her that we weren't trying to move there and work illegally, she warmed up somewhat, stamped all he papers, smiled and told us to have a nice trip. We had no troubles after that.

That was in 2006.

In 2008 we were headed back to Schengen-land, for a trip that began in Portugal, went through Spain, Morocco, and ended up in France. Having learned my lesson about Schengen bureaucrats and visas, I gave them only the minimal, specifically-requested info, and I lied about our itinerary: I said we would be in each country for the exact same number of days but would be arriving in Lisbon, and gave them the info for our hotel in Lisbon, along with their other paperwork and fee (all done via mail). They asked no questions, and we had the visa back in a week. No troubles (even though we needed a 2-entry visa, because we went from Spain to Morocco and then to France). All good.

Our return flight had us with about a 12 hour layover in London. I figured we would go into the city, see a sight or two, grab some fish & chips, then head back to the airport. But the cost and hassles for getting a UK visa were just not worth it. The UK will not answer any questions about tourist visas - you have to call a service that charges a minimum of roughly $15 to pick up the phone (and they were not very helpful, either). The cost for a visa for my wife would have been over $100, and she would have had to submit fingerprints - all this for about 3 - 4 hours in London. To that we said "bloody hell, no". So we spent a relaxing 12 hours in Heathrow on the way back.

Moral of the story: we're working on getting my wife a nice blue passport to avoid such headaches in the future.

Hope this helps. Good luck, have a great trip!

Thanks tons David, this is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear to avoid those problems. Sounds like I should apply for the French visa, hopefully they are easier to deal with, I had considered the Netherlands, but you've steered me clear of that headache and I thank you. Sounds also like maybe I should just skip the UK and maybe swap Spain in for it, possibly going with a visa from Spain.

So I guess my final question, just to be sure, if I start in Spain and skip the UK altogether, would I just need the 1 visa for my wife? And any recommendations on which visa to get Spain, France, or Italy? In other words, anyone have nightmare stories like David's in getting one of those visas?

Thanks again for all the great responses.

SKIP UK...trust me...not worth the hassle.

The people at these embassies are soo rude it makes me wonder if they even want us to visit their country or not.

I would recommend just going to all the Schengen countries so you only have to pay 80 dollars for one visa. As far as which consulate, go with the one you need to go to according to David's definition...they are all RUDE !!

I think the fact that you are from Las Vegas gives you an advantage cuz you won't have to go in person and just mail the application to the consulates in LA (i think)...

Paul, my advice is to make your travel plans, with an itinerary that makes sense for you guys, not to satisfy some lazy consulate worker. Don't worry about how many days you actually plan to spend in each Schengen country - nobody will care or notice once you're there - it's like asking how many days will you be spending in Florida versus Georgia).

Just figure out how many days you'll be there overall, divide by the number of countries, and that's how many days you say you will be in each (just so nobody can tell you to ask somebody else). Never mind what your actual plans are. Book your hotel in your arrival city, and make sure that the hotel staff there will be able to deal with it if/when the consulate calls to confirm. Then apply for the visa at the consulate of the country where you will arrive. Send them the information they require, and no more.

In answer to your specific questions, if your trip starts in Spain, apply for the Schengen visa from the appropriate Spanish embassy/consulate for your home town. If you're not going to the UK (or like us, not leaving the airport), no need to jump through their expensive, snotty hoops, no UK visa needed.

What this mainly proves when dealing with government and bureaucracies...just give them what they ask for and nothing more. It confuses them. Have additional info ready (like I suggested having a copy of your marriage license) but only offer it if asked.

Same thing for the visa. Only offer extra information if asked. The more you tell, the more they question. You might think it's helpful, they just see it as extra paperwork to go through.

I had a feeling I would finally get good information here.

Thanks again to all. I'm sure I will be asking more questions as we get close. Looking forward to packing those backdoor backpacks.