The Schengen Days Dilemma

The 90 day travel limit for Schengen nations can be a bit of a pickle if you’re planning extended travel within Europe. The best way to work around this is to explore some of the incredible non-Schengen countries that are nearby, allowing you to save up some of your 90 days.

As of June 2024 when publishing this article, below is the list of non-Schengen countries:

• Albania

• Belarus

• Bosnia & Herzegovina

• Cyprus

• Ireland

• Kosovo

• Moldova

• Montenegro

• North Macedonia

• Turkey

• United Kingdom

A quick breakdown on how Schengen days work:

Days are counted in a rolling 180 day period. So from the day you enter a Schengen destination, your 90 days start. You then need to basically manually count them and not go over 90 days total within the 180. You can come in and out of Schengen though and your count stops in this time. Hence why people often try to plan non-Schengen countries into their trips to stop the count.

I had a very basic method for keeping track of my days (as you can see below). You literally manually cross out a box every day you are using your 90. I had my start date and finish date for the 180 days at the top of the page so I was well aware of when my count would refresh too. I would also write in any pre-planned trips within Europe so I could work backwards and make sure I wasn’t going to run out of days when agreeing to future trips (i.e. Italy w M&D wasn’t until October! So I needed to block out those five days in advance)!

I also spent a month in Morocco when trying to avoid overstaying my Schengen days. For the most part, destinations outside of Schengen have tended to be cheaper, so there are a lot of perks to checking them out on your Euro trip.

Another way to hack the Schengen days…

Most countries within Europe have short-term visa options for foreigners. Based on discussions I’ve had with fellow long-term travellers, it can be quite simple for Aussies, Kiwis, Irish and Canadians to get access to these. I myself have used working holiday visas for both Austria and the Netherlands. These allow you to settle for up to a year, work and rent accomodation, and are not counted towards your Schengen days!