PragueBuzz!

Why should you care about Schengen Treaty? If you are a foreigner living and working “illegal” in the Czech Republic, you should be.

When the new year arrives and Czech becomes a member of Schengen, together with seven other young EU countries, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, your waltzing in and out of the Czech Republic to the borders for the covet stamp which allows you to stay and work “underground” here for three more months is soon to be numbered.

Instead or paying for a cheap rideshare or bus ticket to Germany, Austria, Poland or Slovakia, you will have to dig deeper in your pocket and lose more time as the closest non-Schengen countries are Croatia and UK. Croatia has risen to be a popular destination for Europeans as well as Czechs, so you can find easily travel deals to this region. Since Croatia is getting more and more expensive, you should welcome the possibility of traveling to Croatia’s less well-off but splendid nonetheless neighbors: Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.

During my first two months here, I met a guy who lived illegally and taught English for three years before starting his adventure business. Every three months, he left the Czech Republic to get a new stamp. This little piece of information was, probably, one of the best travel advice I’d received from any one. Then a month later, I hopped on the bus to Liberec and made my way into Zittau, a small hidden city in South Eastern Germany. Was this trip mandatory? Perhaps not because my employer had already applied for my working Visa. But I really wanted to brag to my friends at home that “I also did it,” that is doing something “illegally.”

See map for current and future Schengen countries.
Green: current members
Pink: immediate future members
Blue: Czech Republic

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