Traveling Europe with a US passport over 90 days 2+ countries

The information that you want to look up is about the Schengen Area.
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/schengen-visa-countries-list/
You could change to another country that is not covered in this area and stay there for the correct amount of time ( edited after Frank’s comment) and then return to Italy. You want to be careful counting those days and not push it to the last possible days.

Look at the website linked above for information and for ideas about which countries do not belong.

Ireland, UK, Croatia could be possible.

Thank you, I spent hours today reading about the aspects of the Shengen , and would need to leave Italy after the 90 days. I have tried calling some of the embassy offices to ask if we could travel there straight from Italy and stay 90 there….cannot get thru to a human…we waited a long time planning this adventure, and want to spend a year in Europe.
We have done this before, but was able to get the year visa with France, but don’t have our contact there any longer.
Ireland, Croatia, UK as suggested, if that could be great if their embassy would answer to give me exact info.

No, you can't leave Italy after 90 days, stay away 90 days, and then return.

The Schengen rules state you can't spend more than 90 days in a 180 day period. It doesn't restart after 180 days.

You don't have to go back to the USA. You just have to leave Schengen.

Be very careful following the rules. If you are found to have overstayed, you could get a heavy fine and be banned from Schengen for up to 10 years.

Well you certainly could travel to the UK. If I understand correctly, you could stay 6 months there.

No one should care what you do in your days outside the Schengen zone. I took a trip in 2018 that included several weeks in Ukraine in the middle of the trip. That kept me from exceeding the 90-day limit. I did not return to the US, I just got out of the Schengen zone. I didn't wait till I'd spent about 90 days in Schengen countries; I just went to Ukraine when it made geographical sense, between visits to Hungary and Poland.

Be sure you stay out long enough. Remember that the day you arrive in the Schengen zone counts, as does the day you leave. Also the day you return. It's OK to go out and return more than once, as long as your Schengen time over the last 180 days doesn't exceed 90 days. You can't leave the zone one day and return exactly 90 days later; you will go over the limit by one day.

There are lots of options for your non-Schengen time: Ireland, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia (Schengen membership pending--stay on top of that) and North Macedonia. Also Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, but none of those are recommended now.

I've been to all those countries except Ireland, Belarus and North Macedonia. They are all worth visiting. Most of them (not Ireland and the UK, of course, and I'd say also not Croatia and Montenegro) feel more "foreign" than the usual destinations in western Europe. You'll spend more time traveling from place to place. But on the other hand, costs will be lower.

In addition, both Denmark and Poland have loopholes that allow Americans to stay on in those countries even if their Schengen time has run out. However, that's something you'd do at the end of the trip so you could head straight home (or via a non-Schengen airport like London or Dublin). To all the other countries in the Schengen zone, your extra time in Denmark of Poland would still count toward your 90 allowable days within the last 180, so you'd be over the limit as soon as you set foot in another Schengen country.

Actually @Frank II that's exactly what you can do - I've just put the following dates in this calculator
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/visa-calculator/
1 Apr - 29 June in Schengen and 1 October - 29 Dec - that's legal . I too would strongly suggest not doing it down to wire like this. But you can definitely do it - and one of the joys of Europe is that there are so many different countries to see within a few hours flight time.
Other non-Schengden countries which are nearrby and havent' been mentioned yet
Bosnia,
Albania,
Kosovo
Georgia
Egypt
Israel
Jordan

Thanks for adding to the list, LIssie. I had a feeling I must be forgetting some European destinations. Odd to omit Albania since I have a guidebook for that country from the library.

Don't forget a trip to magical Armenia. I highly recommend.

At present, don’t plan on maxing out the 90 days in case you test positive for Covid at the end of your time in Schengen. Most places are going to want proof that you have a ticket to leave.

Getting a long term visa isn’t easy (otherwise there would be a long queue of Brits trying to get this now Brexit has curtailed our travel). Getting a visa for one country doesn’t mean you can meander through Europe at will - you are still limited to the 90 day rule outside the country where you have the visa.

Getting a long term visa isn’t easy (otherwise there would be a long queue of Brits trying to get this now Brexit has curtailed our travel). Getting a visa for one country doesn’t mean you can meander through Europe at will - you are still limited to the 90 day rule outside the country where you have the visa.

In any case such a visa is invalid if you don’t maintain residency in the country, so it is not exactly a cheap option.

The Schengen rules almost make you think that the EU countries don't (1) want to cover healthcare costs for us and (2) don't want us moving over there running up the cost of real estate.

@David-

If you think the EU is bad, you should see the rules for US visitors(about the same for Europe) and a pain anyone trying to have family visit from Africa or Asia. But yes, it seems crazy when I think of one of my schoolmates who just picked up and went to the UK in 1989/90 and stayed.

You could also do 30 in and 31 elsewhere forever. Or stay 90 and somewhere else for 91 and you would be OK. Someone on this site in the past couple of years moved to Italy for a year. You might try to use the search box.