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Vagabond is funded from reader donations, and answering travel questions takes a lot of time and effort. If you appreciate me answering your travel question please consider making a contribution. I would say start in the west and then travel east - three months in the Schengen zone, three months out, three months in, three months out. So I would recommend taking your year of work one step at a time, cross bridges when you come to them, and don’t plan too much. Unless you really enjoy riding on trains, Eurorail is a colossal rip off. Buses are also cheaper than the train, but are often still more expensive than budget airline flights if traveling long distance. You can fly between cities and countries on budget airlines for way cheaper that you can going by train. In fact, it is the most expensive way to travel in Europe. I just did a quick check, and you could get from JFK to Dublin for $330 in the beginning of September on Aer Lingus and then from Dublin to Barcelona on Ryanair for around $60.Īs far as the Eurorail goes, never take it unless you really want to. I figure that you could probably travel this route for under $400. In this way, you don’t have to worry about overstaying your visa or of having to avoid immigration anywhere.Ībout airfare, if you are coming from North America, it is not too expensive taking a Jet Blue flight to JFK and then transferring to Aer Lingus to Ireland and then transferring to a European budget airline to get to Barcelona. Then you can work for three months in the Balkans or Eastern Europe, and then return to the Schengen countries (maybe Greece) with a fresh visa and 90 more days. I would recommend trying to line up a farm to volunteer at in Spain, and then work your way east from there, making sure that you are in Croatia by the time your Schengen visa expires. I would say arrange your first stop, go there and work, and then see where you want to go from there.Īs you mentioned that you would like to work in both western and eastern Europe - both inside and outside of the Schengen zone - I do not see any reason why you could not do this buy the rules: three months in, three months out. Thus being, I would recommend not spending too much time tinkering and planning for times that are way down the road. As you plan on working on organic farms during your year off from school, you are going to have a good amount of time in each place that you stay at.
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