We decided to come to France for up to a year! As U.S. citizens, we are allowed to stay in most of Europe for up to 90 days at a time in any 180 day period. We wanted to spend more than a summer in Europe so we needed to figure out how we could get around this restriction. We didn’t want to have to spend time outside of Europe to “reset” these days and so we explored the various visa options available to us. France has a visitor visa, VLS-T[S] that you can get for up to a year by essentially paying fees, showing you have sufficient funds to support yourself while you are here, and promising to not work. If you are wondering what sufficient funds are, I think it’s something like French minimum wage, so something like €23,000/person/year.
France ended up being a great choice for us because a lot of the hiking we want to do in Europe is actually in France. With a 1 year visa, all the time we spend in France “doesn’t count” against our 90 in 180 days in the rest of Europe quota, which we figure will give us plenty of time to see other place while we are here.
Given it is May, it is still early season for big mountain hiking. Mountain season is July - September in the northern hemisphere. Since leaving our apartment in February 2025, we haven’t yet stayed in one place longer than a couple of weeks. We’ve seen a lot of places, but we’ve also spent a lot of time figuring out where we’re going to sleep each night. Each new destination required packing everything up (backpacks) and moving locations. Each time we move somewhere else, we have to figure out where to stay, where to get food, and how to get around. The novelty wore off by the end of 2025. We were getting tired of logistics. We also had not really given “slow travel” a chance, which many people prefer to hopping from country to country. To me, it seems like a natural progression as I get older.
As part of figuring out how we could stay in Europe for longer than 90 days, I found the town of Grenoble, France for us to try out for a couple of months. Without having visited, it seemed like a great balance between outdoor access, affordability, and larger city amenities. Since we had 2 months before hiking season, we also had the opportunity to live in one place for an extended period of time. I can’t tell you how excited I have been to have access to a kitchen and not have to worry about high rent prices rapidly eroding the time we have left to travel.
We have been in Grenoble for more than 4 weeks now and people ask us how it is. I have provided all the background to hopefully add some context to my answer here which is, it is so nice to just exist. We have not eaten out at restaurants, and we have cooked every single meal since arriving. Some days, we don’t even leave the apartment because we don’t have to. I can go for a run with my 1.5 running outfits (1 pair of shorts, 2 shirts) and come back and have a shower. I can stay up late, sleep in, or wake up at 5 after staying up late and just be tired. I can rest injuries without having to continue through pain because I committed myself to an extremely lengthy, interconnected itinerary. I’m pretty sure I cracked a rib near the end of the AT that is finally feeling better after ~6 weeks of not being able to lay on one side, despite the CT report saying nothing was broken. I don’t have to have 20 tabs open on my computer dedicated to researching where we’re going next week. So it’s been great, but not in the way most people expect.
Come July, the plan is:
- The Pyrenees High Route: ~500 miles stretching from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean along the French/Spanish border. (~6 weeks)
- The Alta Via 2: ~100 miles in the Dolomites of Italy. (~10 days)
- Tour du Mont Blanc: ~100 miles around Mont Blanc passing through France, Switzerland, and Italy. (~10 days)
Those hikes + some rest time in between should take us through the middle to the end of September, provided we’re able to do it all. And after that, who knows?