When I left to travel the globe, I’d never even heard of Schengen.  I still haven’t visited the city in Luxembourg, but its main significance to travelers isn’t a cathedral to visit, but the treaty that was signed there in 1985.  Ten years later it was implemented with the creation of Europe’s modern borderless “Schengen Area”, which operates much like a single country (like crossing borders of different states in the United States) with external border controls for travelers coming in and out of the entire area, but with no internal border controls. The borderless zone created currently consists of 25 European countries.

What is the Schengen visa?

The Schengen visa is a single tourist visa (the stamp you get upon arrival) that you can use to visit 25 European countries without the need of separate visas for each country.  This visa allows hassle free internal travel (air, road, train, etc.) between these countries.  It allows visitors (at least from the U.S. and other similar privileged countries) to travel freely within the Schengen countries for a maximum stay of up to 90 days in a 6 month period.

In 2006, they implemented the right to move freely, meaning that passportless travel is allowed inside the entire European Union, if you have a national I.D. card from an EU country.

How does it affect my travel?

Although it’s easier to cross borders now, we, as foreigners (if, in fact, you are reading this and not a citizen of the EU), have even less time in Europe than we used to have.  Intended to eliminate border checks between countries, the treaty makes it easier to move from place to place, but limits the amount of time you can spend in the region as a whole. It’s not enough to hop across a border, get a stamp and come back, you have to spend 90 days outside of a Schengen nation. Fortunately, the UK and Ireland (who have opted out), and Romania, Bulgaria (these two are on their way in), and Cyprus (who have yet to join), are not in the Schengen zone, so you can always head to those countries for the 3 month period before you can re-enter.

Okay, now follow this:  The rules state that a visitor must be outside the region for 90 days for every 90 days he or she is in it.  In other words, you have three consecutive months to travel around all of the EU and then you must leave for at least the next three consecutive months before you can head back in.  This is a bit of a pain for the long-term traveler.  Before the Schengen, each country had their own tourist visa…so I could hang around Germany for three months, then head to France for another three, and then maybe Italy for another three.  Now I have just 90 days to see it all.  During my ‘round the world trip, I planned to get to Europe and spend quite a bit of time there…something I learned upon arrival that I couldn’t do as planned.  Bummer.  Did I overstay my welcome?  Yes, by about a month.  In scouring the internet and talking to other travelers, I heard urban legends of lock-up, being banned for life from the EU, and other various possible punishments.  I also heard a short overstay could mean nothing, which is what happened to me….absolutely nothing.  But it was a gamble and I was lucky (not trying to stay there and live illegally did help).   So while it cuts down on border controls, and allows citizens, to travel freely and find work in other countries, it makes traveling for a foreigner more difficult.

My mantra has become traveling long term is cheaper than you think.  It’s also ‘life is better with cheese’, but that’s another story.  I’ve written about it here and here and here. But today I wanted to narrow in on one specific cost: lodging, aka: room & board, accommodations, or simply ‘where to lay your head.’

When traveling long term, it is, at times, odd to acknowledge the fact that you often don’t know where you will sleep each week.  Although, it has always worked out for me so far and I’ve never had to sleep on a park bench (but have slept in airports), there are many times I show up in a city with no reservations and have to lug my bag to a few places until I find a bed.  There was the time I arrived in Sydney just in time for Christmas.  I had reservations at a hostel for a week, but didn’t think ahead to New Year’s Eve, when this huge, international city would be chock-a-block with revelers from all over Australia and all over the world. Oops. Had to go an hour south just to find somewhere with space that wasn’t prohibitively expensive. Lesson learned and as I traveled, I learned a lot more about other options besides hotels and hostels.  Here are just a few:

Home Stays

Couchsurfing – I can’t say enough good things about Couchsurfing. It changed my travels and the way I look at traveling solo. Some of its many perks: You have friends everywhere & anywhere.  You can get local fast.  You can enjoy the warmth of a home and kitchen.  You frequently can have your own room.  You get to do and see things that you otherwise never would.  You feel a bit more ‘taken care of’ than usual…and it’s nice. As a host you can still meet new, interesting people when not traveling.  It’s FREE.

Other similar free choices:

• Tripping
• Hospitality Club

Airbnb – I became a host on Airbnb in Chicago before I used it as a traveler.  It has a very similar feel to couchsurfing, except it’s a bit ‘more corporate.’  Read: it costs travelers money (but still much less than a hotel room), but this way it also allows homeowners to make some money.  It runs the gamut – you can search for just a room or even rent a whole apartment or villa!  It lacks a tad of that community spirit that Couchsurfing has spent years cultivating amongst its members.  But there seem to be a lot of crossover (couchsuring-airbnb) users, so hopefully it will grow into a great community.  My first guest could not have been more interesting. He owns a large herb company that supplies some major supermarkets across the US. His brother? A former progressive mayor of Bogota that started the Ciclovia bike day there and built hundreds of kilometers of bike paths and greenways and rehabbed 1,200 parks. Thanks to him, bicycling in Bogota quadrupled to 400,000 people per day.  Here is a great interview he did with the NY Times.  His other brother founded 8-80Cities, an organization helping make our cities more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly around the world.   Oh, and their father was Colombia’s Ambassador to the United Nations.  So…you never know with whom you might host or stay.

Other home stay rental sites:

• Vacation Rentals By Owner
• Home Away
• Vacation Remix
• Home Exchange

Housesitting

I’ve done several house sitting and pet sitting gigs during my travels in places like Istanbul and the Hollywood Hills and Manhattan.  Most were through word of mouth, but there are quite a few sites (some free and some with membership fees) out there to help you find jobs:

• Trusted Housesitters
• Sittercity
• House Careers
• Mind My House

Rental Apartments

Perhaps you want your own space and you’d rather have it professionally managed rather than just by a homeowner.  There are dozens of rental apartment sites popping up in every city.  Often times this is cheaper than a hotel, plus you get your own apartment complete with kitchen, sometimes laundry, and if you’re lucky even more perks like a pool! I recently tried this out in London and Portugal. It was great to have key and my own place. Plus the apartments are often in ‘real’ neighborhoods, giving you even more of a feel of being local rather than staying amidst the rest of the tourists.  Some of the big ones:

• In Europe: Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona Apartments.
  
• Roomorama
• House Trip

Disclosure: In London I was a guest of Oh-London and in Portugal Roomorama hosted my stay. As usual, the views here are my own.

“I am happy, in life right now, but money is my biggest stress.  I don’t need a lot, but just want enough for my family so it’s not a worry,” says Manuel, a recent Airbnb host of mine in Portugal.

His words echo those of so many others I meet around the world – many affected in countries near and far by the current economic climate.  Many of us ‘feel’ it in the United States, but I tend to think a lot of us never come close to feeling it like others around the globe.

I am often asked how I was able to pay for my trip around the world.   And my simple answer is ‘travel is cheaper than you think.’ I wrote about the details of how I did afford it here.

Now I am ‘back’ and living a somewhat more rooted life (read: I have an apartment in Chicago and pay monthly rent and utility bills – something I did NOT do when traveling full time, which is one of the reasons it’s cheaper than people realize – I wasn’t paying for a vacation, but just my daily living expenses).   But now I am still traveling several times a year and am often gone for a month or so at a time.  So, the new question is, how can I afford this now? How can I afford to travel AND still be paying rent and bills back home?  I don’t have some master plan…except just basically this secret: 

I spend less.

Here’s how:

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Warning: If you are squeamish or prude or don’t have genitalia, this post may offend you.

If you read the title as “big on bid-detz” then this is going to be a hard sales pitch.  But hear me out.

The poor, little bidet.  It gets a bad rap and is probably the most misunderstood bathroom fixture this side of the Atlantic.

Well, I think bidets (bih-DAYS) are awesome.

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Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: I do not own a smartphone…yet.***

Sure, I’d love one, but since I’m trying to minimalize to save money and the earth in various ways and since it is my job is to sit at this laptop pecking away all day long, I am also afraid to get one and be plugged in more than I already am.   I’ve become a bit addicted to checking my email, but it’s also my work, my income, and the source of various leads and freelance opportunities.  It is all an amazing networking web-world out there for me, one of which I see the many advantages.

So while I can’t recommend an exact phone to you, I can recommend something I already do: go prepaid.

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