Schengen visa tips

If you are not a citizen of US, Canada or EU in most likelihood you'll need a visa to travel within Europe. Under the Schengen treaty, you need one visa to travel through 15 Schengen states. Remember, Switzerland is not a Schengen country, but if you have a valid Schengen visa, you can travel through Switzerland by train and can also make stopovers. However there is a time limit on these stopovers. Check out the websites
http://www.schengenvisa.cc and http://www.eurovisa.info for more details.

Some tips:

1) Have all your hotel reservations, airline tickets (confirmations) and visitor's health insurance in place. If you have health insurance by Kaiser Permanente, you don't need a visitor's health insurance. You also need to show your 3 most recent bank statements and salary slips.

2) Go to the embassy of the country that is your main destination.
Main destination is defined as the country where you stay the longest. In case you stay for same number of days in two Schengen countries, say two days, your main destination is the country where you first fly into.

3) In most cases, you get the visa in a day, but if you are applying by mail, apply early, atleast 20 days before. Some embassies, do not accept mail applications. Check the specific rules with the consulate website. Even if you apply in person, apply early. Some consulates (Italian embassy in San Francisco especially in summer is very crowded and the waiting period can be as long as 20 days).

4) Have the faxed confirmations from the hotels where you'll be staying. Some consulates have this as a mandatory requirement. If you are staying with friends, they need to send you an invitation letter. Check with the embassy website for more details. Hotels are generally quick in sending out faxed confirmations. Call them up and almost all of them will comply.

Good luck with your visa application!