Staying in Western Europe for 3-6 months?

If I was going to do that, I would probably rent places for a month at a time to use as bases for exploring the areas. On a smaller scale, a few times we spent around a month in France and we rented places in different areas for a week at a time.
One caution -- assuming you're a US citizen and don't already know about the Schengen stay rule, make sure you research that.

Assuming you have the visa issue in hand, you will have chosen a country to enter for visa purposes. But no single town or city can give you a central base to see Europe via short excursions. Italy? Even if you base in Florence, which is quite central, it is 90 minutes from Rome and 2 hours from Venice. France certainly has no single base where you can tour the country on day excursions.

You get the idea.

We lived in Rome for several years and used it as a base to travel 50% of the time, so we were paying rent in Rome and paying for lodging on our trips. Kind of double-the cost but at least we didn’t have to fly to-and-from the US and no jet lag.

Were we to do long term travel again (currently we stay 6 to 8 weeks per trip) we would stay in a single location 2 to 4 weeks and keep our time in the Schengen to 89 days then perhaps bounce to the UK for two-or-three months, filling out 6 months that way.

I've spent the last 5 summers in Europe. Most of the trips were 4-1/2 months. Schengen-Zone time was usually 88 or 89 days.

I love long stays, but for someone without a special project (I sometimes take 2 weeks of language lessons), not interested in lounging on a beach or a lakeshore and not capable of long rural walks or the like, only really major cities are likely to provide enough activities to fill even a two-week stay.

I'm OK with 4 nights or longer; I try to limit the 3-night stays and avoid 1-night or 2-night stops unless forced into them. That pattern gets me through my trips without being hospitalized for exhaustion.

Certainly you could stay longer than 2 weeks in a place like London or Paris, but that would be a lot of intensely urban time for a single trip. If you choose a megaloplis and then take a bunch of day-trips, you'll probably be paying high lodging costs while visiting cheaper destinations, and don't forget the added travel time to get from your lodgings to the bus or train station every day you leave the city.

I don't like the idea of making multiple day-trips to the same area. I twitch when someone plans to stay in London and take day trips to Bath, Oxford and the Cotswolds.

I prefer to schedule a 4+ night stay in a smaller town from which I can make a cluster of side-trips in different directions. I try to limit the travel time to about an hour each way, but I will push it to 2 hours if I need another side-jaunt to justify at least a 4-night stay somewhere. Destinations for the longer day-trips tend to be quite small--places I feel I can see pretty thoroughly in about 4 or 5 hours. I figure a place with a full day's worth of sightseeing, or more, needs to be a base rather than a side-trip.

Over the last five summers I've spent about 4-1/2 months in Spain and the same amount of time in France. Even so, I haven't hit all the places I wanted to see. In fact, I haven't gotten to Paris yet. I've also spent 5 weeks in Poland, which left huge chunks of the country untouched. That will give you an idea of my preferred pace.

I keep my itinerary as flexible as possible, booking only problem destinations before departure.

I highly recommend digging into single-country guidebooks as a first step. It's essential to know what's out there so you don't spend a lot of time traveling long distances, bypassing great destinations. I guarantee you'll end up with far too many destinations for a single trip, so you may as well put together an itinerary with an eye to expected weather. I try to spend mid-summer in cooler spots. Week after week of too-hot or too-cold weather would wear me down.

There are some special steps to consider when planning such a long trip, no matter where you go:

• The trip will be hard on your clothes and shoes. Be sure they are in good shape to begin with. Take a sewing kit with plenty of thread in colors appropriate for your wardrobe. Include large as well as small needles.

• You're quite likely to get sick at some point. I travel with a small supply of my preferred remedies and a significant quantity of items I know are not available in Europe (high-zinc-content lozenges).

• Figure out how bills will be paid. My monthly charges are set to auto-pay by credit card. My credit cards are set to auto-pay by direct debit to my credit union account. Don't forget insurance and property tax bills that may come due during the trip.

• Think now about changes to your schedule for medical and dental check-ups. Will your insurance cover you if you end up advancing some check-ups? Also check on what coverage you'll have in Europe with your current plan.

• Figure out the process for getting more than a 90-day supply of prescription meds.

• Find someone to deal with your mail. The Postal Service will usually hold mail for only 30 days.

• Explore affordable options for phone service and possibly data access.

Thank you guys......much appreciated.

We typically spend between 5 weeks and 4 months in Europe each year. We really enjoy setting into a place for 4-5 weeks and really getting to know it. That said, we usually only do this in large cities or in places with close proximity to many things to do. As nice as it sounds, without a job or other things to occupy your time it can get a little monotonous. Countryside locations are NOT good for this unless you have completely burned yourself out and need to just sit around and read books and rest! We did this once on a island and I thought I was going to absolutely lose my mind! We've done long stays like this in Norway, the Czech Republic, the UK several times, France several times, Switzerland, and several other countries in and out of Europe. Just don't go over your 90 day Schengen limit in the European countries that are in the Zone and you'll be fine! Your time in Britain should take care of this.
Bills are a challenge but you can set up automatic bill pay or just pay them online remotely. For anything I need to pay with a check, I just pay the full amount in advance for the time we will be away - things like lawn care, etc.
We often home exchange to keep our costs way down - it's very nice to be in a comfortable home for a long stay rather than a hotel or a bare rental apartment. Many retirees do this since they have the time.
When we change locations every 5 weeks or so, we use the opportunity to "bounce" our way to the next location, taking time to stop along the way, stay a few days in interesting places, and do some sightseeing.

One approach that friends have used frequently (I can't afford the time myself) is to pick 3 - 4 cities and get Air BnB's in each for about 2 weeks.

Then travel around, although you do pay twice for accommodations.... Milan and environs is central in northern Italy, Munich is central in Bavaria and easily accessible to most of Austria, Nuremberg is central to Germany and half way between the Alps and Berlin, Brussels has easy access to the area from Paris to northern Germany, Paris puts you in the middle of northern France...etc.

Another approach is to look over central sites that have tours out to places you might want to see. For example: Paris is the hub for bus tours to Brittany, Normandy, and many points east.

Another approach is to look at the local bus systems out of potential places to stay. Local buses go everywhere in the Dolomite region out of Bolzano. The VGN system goes all over Franconia (northern Bavaria although they don't generally like to admit that). Europe is just filled with public transportation from small place to small place.

Having done the "big" sites focusing on enjoying smaller places sounds like a wonderful plan.

HAVE FUN!

There are so many parameters, I don't know quite where to start. Western Europe without a special (and somewhat cumbersome to acquire) visa, means you can spend no more than 89 days in Western Europe including Ireland, and up to 3 months in the UK.

What time of year? If you want to avoid the summer crowds and heat, 3 months means a lot of different weather conditions. . . Oct/Dec (with Xmas, New Year); Mar/May (Easter) . . .

Since you've been to several countries already, do you want to go back to them or see others . . .Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria?

Are you willing to do a lot of driving or do you want to travel only on public transportation, which your post hints at.

There are cities where you can stay put and day trip. My experience after visiting many small towns that are recommended as day trips, that an overnight is much better, and often more than one night is ever better than that. That means you're paying double for those nights or missing out on a good chunk of the experience. It also means long days when you add up all the travel time.

Lastly, I'm a little puzzled by your statement we don't know the most efficient way to do this and still take in some great places to experience What do you mean by efficient? Do you mean low costs, minimal travel time, or just not a lot of packing/unpacking and lugging suitcases? What kind of experiences interest you? Physical activities, culture (music, art), food and drink, history?

You say you've been to the UK and France. Is there a place you've been there that you would return to and can picture yourselves there for a month-long stay? I've been to Paris and London multiple times, almost never for less than a week, and a couple times for 2 weeks or more. If I could afford it, I'd happily stay in either for a month. I can't think of another place I'd want to settle in for that long, except maybe Barcelona or Rome if you haven't spent much time there.

Thank you Frank II for the important corrections to Schengen and visa info - see Frank's post below

Ireland is not in Schengen and you get 90 days. The normal allowed stay in the UK is 6 months.

Just looking at lodging options....

I would favor a mix of finding a home base, for up to a month, then travel in 3-4 day stays for a couple weeks to another location to stay for close to a month...repeat or vary somewhat.

Constant relocation is tiring, the time spent in one location is recovery and down time, as well as time to enjoy small things (becoming a regular at a market or coffee shop, visiting little known sites, etc) I think the "Home Base" also allows for Day and 1-2 night trips in the region.

Yes, it does seem like you are paying twice for lodging, but the idea is that your long term stay is likely at a significant discount compared to nightly lodging, so if you were to compare cost of a long term stay and your overnights, it likely is still less than a string of short term stays for the same time period, you are concerned about total cost. Another advantage of the home base is that those short trips could be done with a day pack, making them easier and more efficient.

The idea of breaking up long stays with 3-4 day stays means you could relocate from Rome to Madrid for example, hitting maybe the French Coast, Provence, Barcelona, the Spanish Coast, then on to Madrid.

My last point is, for cost, you do not need to be in prime real estate for your home base. Look to fringe neighborhoods (For example, in Rome, maybe the Trastevere, but further out toward Trastevere station) with good transportation links and decent markets/restaurants. You could also consider a smaller town on a main rail line.

Ireland is not in Schengen and you get 90 days. The normal allowed stay in the UK is 6 months

Although I would be careful about planning spending ~9 months in the area due to the Common Travel Area. In that case, your travel to Ireland from the UK, or vice versa, may be considered to be part of your time within the Entry Country. For example, it is possible to enter the UK, travel to Ireland, return to the UK (all without Passport controls), and not be allowed more than your "up to six months" in the UK and Ireland, and as short as 90 days if your entry country is Ireland.

Unless you're one of the lucky few Americans who have moved to Europe (selling or renting out your home or arranging lengthy home exchanges), settling into a spot for a month or more and taking a bunch of overnight trips doesn't mean paying double for lodging; it means paying triple. I have a problem with that from a psychological point of view, I admit.

While I'll grant the theoretical possibility that it might be cheaper to take advantage of monthly rental rates, in the real world it obviously depends on how many nights you end up sleeping at your base location and what you pay per month. The more convenient the base location for side trips, the higher the rent is likely to be. I doubt that a month in Paris costs less than 4 nights in Rouen, 4 nights in Caen, 3 nights in Bayeux, etc.

I know there are some very nice, comparatively inexpensive, rentals out there, but they tend to be inconvenient for those depending on public transportation, possibly requiring the additional expense of a rental car.

Even from more convenient locations there's the matter of a bunch of round-trip train or bus tickets, as opposed to one-way tickets. If you stay longer at fewer bases, those side jaunts will tend to cover greater distances, meaning even higher transportation costs.

If you seriously want to go to Europe and put down roots, only very occasionally spending a night away from home, that's a different story, but a lot of folks seem to be thinking of using long stays as a less expensive way to see many different places, and I'm not convinced that will work out financially. I'm cheap, and I hate changing lodgings, but I've never found the base+overnight trips to pencil out for me, partly because it's the high-cost cities where I'd find enough to keep me busy so I didn't want to take many overnight trips.

My view is the following: get that tedious Schengen "stuff" all under control and behind you.

Once you don't have to contend with officialdom and red tape, focus on getting away and staying away for the duration you choose, say 3 months, 4.5 months etc.

I would have no problems choosing where to concentrate based on interests. Time-wise I prefer May to Sept....do the reading before deciding on your area. Know your preferences and what you can do with and without, know your travel style..

For example, it is possible to enter the UK, travel to Ireland, return to the UK (all without Passport controls), and not be allowed more than your "up to six months" in the UK and Ireland, and as short as 90 days if your entry country is Ireland.

If your passport is from the US or Canada, you will go through passport control when traveling from the UK into Ireland. However, there is no passport control the other way.

I have done this numerous times.

Oh, I would agree that when I flew into Ireland from the UK on Ryanair, I went through Passport control in Dublin. As I recall I told them I would be there for just over a week, they stamped my passport, allowing me up to 3 weeks.

However, on return to Leeds, no passport control, we just got off the plane and left. I can only assume that when I exited the UK a few weeks later, if I had exceeded 6 months, which included my time in Ireland, I would have had issues, since I only showed a single entry into the UK.

Add to that, you will not see any passport control at the Northern Ireland land border, ferries who knows, even other air carriers people have reported no passport control. All good cause to be careful managing your time.