Have you been stuck on a dead-end street, running out of feasible exit options and just when you’re ready to throw in the towel, stumble upon a solution in a place you never expected to find it?
“Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”, Dr. Seuss
We are in a lockdown again. Although many don’t, we follow it to the letter. Occasional grocery shopping in the darkness of an early winter morning, but mainly ordering for curbside pick up and/or deliveries to the door. Regular walks on the empty streets of our neighbourhood in the cold, short winter days. Xmas letters, some accompanied by whatever cards I could find in my stash left from previous years (shopping for Xmas cards is not essential) are long time sent and the house decorated in November. My homemade sauerkraut for a mini-Xmas dinner is ready and waiting in the cold garage. There won’t be our usual 20+ guests for Xmas dinner, of course.
Planning our 2021 road trips doesn’t seem much use at this time, when we don’t even know when we’ll be allowed out of the province and when we’ll need to be here for the promised vaccines. So next year we will be playing it by ear. Hop in the van and hit the road when and where possible.
But after? We can drive one summer to the East Coast and another to the beautiful west part of Canada. However, given some health considerations I’ve been trying to plan and do the most challenging travels first. Will tourism in 2022 be fully recovered and if so, at what cost? Accommodations, flights, public transportation?
What if we can ship Doranya to Europe and travel around for a year or more? (We’ve always had this dream, but as with many others, shelved for the future.) For sure, there are Alex’s health risks to deal with, but we can take his medications with us for at least 6 months and probably more. It is an exciting prospect. If we can get to Norway, which has the ‘right to roam’ rule, we can overnight for free almost everywhere. Given the price of accommodations there, that by itself will pay for the shipping cost.
And so, I started researching such a possibility. Don’t remember how, but I first ran into a blog by a British couple who had toured Norway for 7 months with their motorhome (campervan that is). We connected with them and received extremely valuable information to get us started. We learned that there are many aires in France too. (Aires, as we learned, are a free parking places where one can overnight. They often have toilets and showers for a small fee). Aaron & Nicky referred us to other bloggers with more information (their words) on touring Europe with their motorhomes. I read a lot while Alex watched a few videos and moved on. OK I should give him a credit here, he read a lot too and found some interesting blogs for me. (I’m much better at planning spontaneity – A)
We began exploring the feasibility of shipping our campervan to Europe and spending 6 months to a year there. Or more? As soon as we can. Perhaps early 2022. Or even late 2021. It won’t be easy and it will all depend on many moving pieces of the puzzle fitting together. But that excites me. Can we get travel medical insurance for such a long time and at what price? How about vehicle insurance? We know we can ship our van from Halifax to Europe and back, but how long can a Canadian registered vehicle be driven in Europe? Can we store it somewhere (we have a few friends and relatives here and there), if we want to fly back home for any reason? What are the implications of such a move? At a certain point of time, we knew that our van can stay in Europe for 6 months and possibly more. However, there was one almost unsurmountable obstacle. Until now, we’ve travelled around Europe on our EU passports. But Bexit is knocking at the new year’s door and Alex’s UK passport will be of little use starting next year. Same as his Canadian one. One can stay in the Schengen area for 90 days in any 180 days (or roughly 3 months in any given 6 months). So, our van can stay 6 months in EU, but Alex can only stay 3?! There has to be something. Our first discovered bloggers Aaron & Nicky had moved to France this past summer. I kept reading. All UK bloggers I ran into, writing about their motorhome travels around Europe and around the world have settled either in Spain or France. Alex can easily obtain Italian or French visa, but there are strings attached. Nothing on the EU commission or Schengen websites, that can help us solve this hurdle. We decided we’ll start calling the consulates of the countries we’d like to visit. This requires a bit more concrete details, not just an idea, though.
I kept searching (Google can be helpful sometimes) and reading with the intent to create an itinerary that will help with a potential visa or visas. Until I ran into a post named “Motorhoming in Europe After Brexit”. The options offered there were: head for non-Schengen countries for 3 months in every 6, obtain a country visa, become an EU resident, get an EU passport, and… marry an EU citizen. Wait, what? Is this true? Sweetie, you are married to me! (huh, when did that happen? – A) “If you are a UK citizen married to a passport holder of an EU country, then under Article 6(2) of Directive 2004/38/EC, you have the right to a family life and may travel together under the same rules as the passport holder.” Can’t believe my eyes! I have visited so many embassy sites, I even filled out the French questionnaire “Will I need visa if I am married to EU citizen?” and the answer was yes (that being a one-year visa for France only). Alex quickly found the article and there it was laid plain and clear.
We’ll probably e-mail the European commission, just to have their confirmation with us in case. But that evening I had my happy dance around the Xmas tree.
“The best dreams happen when you’re awake”, Cherie Gilderbloom
Oh, the places we’ll go my Love!
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