Long term europe trip

Sounds great especially if you can afford it. The first thing to do is obtain the proper visa since you cannot stay in the Schengen area for more than 90 days out of 180days without a visa. But assume you know that. Use VRBO or similar sites to obtain apartments. I think the month rentals are the way to go.

Your trip sounds like a fantastic experience. I agree about staying a month in each place. Now, you'll just have to read, read, read to figure out where to stay. The big cities are very expensive across the board. It'd be nice to stay outside the larger cities 20-30 miles where you can take day trips and catch the festivities as they happen. All I would say would be to pay close attention to where you're going in certain months. I would suggest October for Italy, as the harvest is in full swing. You might want to swing north for the Summer to avoid the hot. Another subject is transportation, and what to do for an automobile. Projected cost? I have no idea. Rent, utilities, etc. is so much more expensive in Europe than in The States.
Remember that planning can be half the fun.

Sorry, your plan is not really possible as you likely envision it owing to Schengen Area rules. You are allowed to be in the Schengen zone (most of Europe) for 90 days total out of any 180 day period. So if you're in Schengen for 90 days straight, you have to leave the zone for 90 days before you return. The UK and Ireland are not part of the Schengen zone-- Americans can stay visa-free in the UK for six months and Ireland for three months. So a nine month trip becomes more feasible if you include big chunks of time in the British Isles. You can apply for an extended residence visa for a particular country (e.g. France or Spain), but even with such a visa you could only travel in the rest of Schengen for the same 90 out of 180 days. And if they got a whiff that you were only planning to stay in that country for a couple months you would be denied. So, check out the Schengen zone map and come up with some alternatives (other popular destinations outside Schengen are Croatia and Turkey).

And also Serbia, Monte Negro, Macedonia, Bosnia, Albania.

An , schedule, initial. We will probably spend the winter months (jan-mar.) in portugaul, spain, so. France, work our way down the italian coast to the boot. Then to Sicily. Plan is come back north and be in Rome in early april. Spent a 2-3 weeks in rome, rail travel to florence last week in april. Then rail up to venice for week then to austria. Spend at 3 weeks in austria, prob rent a car. This is where we dont know what to do. Go to prague, warsaw, budapest (do an E. europe swing)? or head to northern france (paris), germany, swizterland(been to lucerene) love to go back spend more time.
Either way end up in amsterdam by august 1st. Take the train/plane to london (3 weeks) then to ireland for 2-3 weeks (i have family there). By end of sept head back south, normandy, and hit some of the harvest festivals (octoberfest, tuscany, ect.) we want to be somewhat flexible any thoughts on this schedule?

Unfortunately you have not addressed the Schengen/visa issue. If you are somehow exempt from the 90 day restriction, or have a viable plan to get a residence visa someplace, you should say so. Otherwise people are just spinning their wheels trying to help you with a plan that won't work.

vaugh you do realize your plan is not workable unless you have EU citizenship? Or apply for individual visas..
You need to leave the Schengen zone after 90 days for a certain amount of time before you can re enter ( and its months not weeks) and start another 90 day visit.

Vaughn, you will need to have an extended visa - or several - to comply with the Schengen rule. Mainly you have to prove you ca support yourselves without entering the job market. Probably involves sufficient funds deposited in a European bank. There are other compliance rules but it can be done.

Would it work if they spent 3 months in the Schengen countries, then 3 months in the UK then back again for another 3 months?

According to most interpretations that would work (90 days Schengen, then 90+ days in the UK, then another 90 days in the Schengen zone). But that isn't the plan Vaughn described even after the Schengen issue was pointed out. So either he is ignoring it or he has a plan to acquire a visa, and it would be nice to know which before people spend a lot of time offering ideas and cost estimates.

@Sasha, " But that isn't the plan Vaughn described even after the Schengen issue was pointed out. So either he is ignoring it or he has a plan to acquire a visa, and it would be nice to know which before people spend a lot of time offering ideas and cost estimates" I most definitely agree! I haven't posted any comments on this Thread as the OP has not provided sufficient information on how he plans to deal with the issue of the limitations imposed by the Schengen Accord. I'm not going to spend any time with this until the OP provides all of us with some further details. Cheers!

Is vaughn from tipton, ia usa still in the building?

Hi, I'm going to focus my comments on the transportation angle of this extended trip, regardless if you deal with or dismiss the time constraint imposed by Schengen. Assuming you plan on traveling everywhere from Spain to Hungary or Finland, Italy to Sweden, UK to Poland, I would use all means...discount airlines, night trains, ferries (3 to 26 hrs), long distance trains, discounted non-flexible train tickets and an Eurail Global Pass, point to point tickets, even a single country Pass, short term rental cars...to get around. Time-wise you have the flexibility, just like traveling 30-40 yrs ago. Use the Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe as a planner as well as DB website. Keep in mind that by mid-May shortly before 05:00 it's daylight, useful to know when taking a night train.

Vaughn, If you haven't responded to the other replies, perhaps it is because this Schengen stuff has hit you like a brick wall. Here's the link to help, at least at first: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/index_en.htm. I will try to link it here, but I haven't had much luck with that lately. I hope at least one of the options will work for you. It should open to a map of the Schengen countries with more clickable links on the left side of the page. As you can see from the map, there aren't too many places to go outside the Schengen countries and some of the Schengen countries aren't even in the EU.

What I suspect is that Vaughn was not really interested in the unsolicited advice which kills the basic idea. Or there is more to his idea than he has told us. Either way it kills the discussion. Will move on to the next question.

ah , perhaps unsolicited, but its crucial information that if OP is not aware of will cause huge issues for them. I think in this type of case what is not mentioned could make or break this persons plan.

Many people don't actually know for a fact that you just can't go live in Europe for several months. When countries each had its own immigration control (a PITA when travelling, I can only imagine), you could rake in several month-long stays on different countries, or even do visa-runs that would effectively allow you to "live" in Europe for a long time if you didn't work and had money. Now, things changed, you can't just go "live in Europe" at whim without a full assessment of visa implications. In most cases, you just can't take such trips anymore (in retrospect: same applies to Europeans travelling to USA, since the 1990s the idea of "spending a year in America" travelling or getting a place in a city like NYC is no longer legally possible, period).

Getting a longer term visa isn't the end of the world. The main thing is that you show you can support yourself, aren't a criminal, and don't intend to overstay your visa. I'm not sure how that relates to residency by buying a place. You have to get the visa before you travel, but I'm not sure if planning to gain residency by purchasing property is an issue. I also have no ideas about tax implications (the US seems to be trying to increase taxing authority over expats, though you won't be exactly an expat). I had also heard Spain was considering the residency rule, but hadn't heard it was law yet. I love the idea of renting an apartment for 30 days at a time - great way to see Europe. Generally, it costs more to live in Europe than the US (just as it costs more to live in New York than Indiana). I'd plan at least double your normal living expenses. If you will dine out regularly, you might plan for even more than that.

I understand the issues for the extended travel in Europe. Thanks for everyone to point that out to me. I hadn't thought of that. Now for other things. I am semi-retired, I have just started working with an attorney on purchasing some real estate in the EU zone. Some countries will give you residency for the purchase of some real estate of certain value. I believe that Spain does this? and France? not sure of the term but You can get a Resident Alien status. We just started this process and we are at least a year out. i have children who will be living in europe for a few years and I thought i could incorporate the trip/visit. again, thoughts

Hi, The Schengen issue may be tedious to deal with but not an insurmountable obstacle. If you're willing to scale down your travel plans, it's easy to come up with doable travel plan for 100 to 110 days as along as you count carefully, and have some travel discipline. Spend exactly 90 days in Schengen countries, (stay only in Schengen countries on the continent), a week to 10 days in London and England, and the 10 days elsewhere in the UK.

The only EU country I know of that has a 'Golden Visa' program is Portugal (real estate worth +500,000 Euro). There are plans in Spain to start a similar program, but as far as I know they aren't law yet.
France isn't that desperate for money. And long term visas or residence permits of EU/Schengen countries don't confer any rights in other EU countries: with e.g. a Portuguese Golden Visa you can still just spent 90 out of 180 days in the rest of the Schengen area. Depending on how much you like Portugal this may or may not be a good enough deal for you.

Vaughn, I have the very bad life combination of working part time mixed with a love of traveling. Having said that, I personally cannot go by the budget suggestions given on this site because it would take me years to save. My sister and I spent 3 months in Europe in 2011, 2 in Florence and 1 in Lisbon, plus a few days in Madrid. That trip cost me about $3500. Total. Including flight. I don't play when it comes to bargain hunting, without compromising comfort and safety. I do budgeting differently and I'm very tenacious (read: stubborn). Instead of looking up info and adding up the cost, I figure out how much I can actually spend, and then search and search and search until I find ways to make that budget work. Only when I have exhausted all options do I make the choice to up the budget. Because I go about it that way, I force myself to find less expensive options instead of just settling for the first thing I find, assuming that's what I have to pay. So of course do what's best for you, but why not try figuring out how much you are willing and able to spend on such a trip, and then go from there?

Perhaps this article from the WSJ titled "Let's-Sell-Our-House-and-See-the-World-Retirement" by Lynne Martin (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004131575356160.html#project%3Dnxcover10222012_pg%26articleTabs%3Darticle) might be helpful for your planning. Be sure to click on the interactive map titled "Pay as They go" to see how these people manage some of the issues discussed here by moving around and what it costs them. And there is a link to the blog Lynne does at http://homefreeadventures.com/. This is not exactly what you are thinking about doing vis-a-vis buying, but there may be some relevant parts and useful information for you otherwise.