I have been to Schengen countries 4 times and every time I was asked different type of questions and different type of experience so I thought of compiling all the experience and making a video what all can happen to you when you reach Schengen countries when you enter and exit, what type of questions you can ask and there were also questions from many subscribers that if we take visa from a particular embassy and if we don't go to that country, what will happen if we go to other countries so consider all these situations in this video and let's see what type of experience you can get when you reach Schengen countries so in 2018 I went to Schengen for the first time with my wife and at that time I had only one sticker visa of New Zealand on my passport and there were two stamps of New Zealand and Dubai and I applied for visa from Switzerland embassy and my visa came for 30 days with one month validity and our plan was that we were going to Paris before Bombay and we had a plan of 3 3 days in Paris, take a train from Paris to Interlaken, spend 6 days in Switzerland, flight from Zurich to Amsterdam, 3 days there then from to Mumbai. Total 12 days. all actual bookings were given during the visa,
actual flight tickets, actual hotel booking and inter country flight tickets also. that we will get the visa and at that time we didn't get so many rejections and many people didn't apply and that's why our visa came easily I think hardly in 4-5 days we got the visa of Switzerland so we reached Paris first and we had immigration there and we had asked only 2 basic questions on immigration first was the standard question that what's your purpose of travel so we had answered tourism and second was where is your return flight tickets so in 99% of cases they ask purpose of travel and second they ask about return flight that when are you going back so this was the only thing that happened there and hardly in 15 minutes immigration was done so here I would also like to suggest something that if your first trip is in Schengen then don't make a long travel itinerary for visa 10-12 days is also enough and because you are going to Europe for the first time and you must be doing a job or self-employed so it's risky to show more leave when you get 2-3 times, 3-4 times then it's better to show 15-20 days so when you are going for the first time, it's better to show a short trip and even if you show a short trip then chances of return increases so after that we applied for Schengen again in 2019 it was the same summer time and our plan was to spend 4 days in Budapest, Hungary and then catch a train to Salzburg and then we were going to spend 8 days in Austria so this time we had taken a visa for Austria and after Austria we were going to catch a train to Prague spend 4 days and then come to Bombay so the total plan was 16 days so how did we get a visa for Switzerland in 5 days in 2018? so it took us 20 days get a visa for Austria and later we came to know that the visa process for Austria is very slow they ask a lot of questions they can even call you and ask if they have any doubts so Austria is not the country to get a visa from it's better to get a visa from Germany, Switzerland or Italy so we had to get a visa from Austria because our highest stay was going to be there for 8 days and we had shown all the actual booking in Austria flight booking, train booking, stay booking everything was we thought that we will get a visa again so we did the booking at that time rates were also good when you book a flight 3 months in advance then rates are the best so we booked all that and applied for the visa maybe because of all these reasons it's a little easy to get a visa when you are actual but it's also very risky if visa is refused then flight tickets are never refunded this trip was also with my wife and this time also we got a 1 month visa but our travel days were only for 21 days so itinerary was for 16 days and we were allowed for 21 days so we thought that we have to come back in 16 days so there is no problem so our immigration was Budapest-Hungary and again their first question was what's your purpose of travel so again tourism and I think this time they didn't even give return flight ticket but one important point I would like to tell here that when you go to India for your boarding pass on the counter that's when they also ask for a return flight ticket it is in checklist that whoever is going abroad going to Europe or going to any country then it is compulsory to feed their return flight in their system so they will ask you for a return flight ticket from here a lot of people say that if you don't book a return flight ticket then what can happen so that's why I want to say that you will have a problem in boarding here so make sure to always book return flight tickets when you travel abroad after this, there was no trip in 2020 it was the time of Covid, travel was on hault I stopped traveling abroad but in 2021 and 2022 I did a solo trip in Europe and Schengen countries I applied from Switzerland embassy again and I got my visa again I got my visa in hardly 3 days this is 2021 no one was applying no one was traveling I got it very easily and again I got a one-month visa 30 days validity and this time I made sure to utilize all 30 days I was in Europe for 30 days and the travel itinerary I showed for the visa it had a 22-day plan and it was about Switzerland that I am going to stay in each part of Switzerland for 4-5 days but this time I didn't do any actual booking for the visa neither did I confirm the flight ticket nor did I confirm the stay I didn't book anything before the visa I wasn't sure as there were many covid restrictions everywhere and then I took a direct flight from Bombay to Paris I had to go to Switzerland but I didn't have a direct flight to Switzerland and still I don't think I have a direct flight to Switzerland I had a direct flight to Paris so I went to Paris first and asked a lot of questions on immigration but they were mostly related to Covid I had to fill a lot of Covid forms to get an entry in France and for Switzerland's entry I had to fill a separate online form I also had a printout of it I asked a lot of questions related to that and apart from that when I landed in Paris my next train to Switzerland was also 2 hours later so I had to run a lot for that it was very crowded at that time I had to jump immigration line also, as I had train to catch in next 2 hours. I also showed them the train ticket after that they stopped asking more questions and then they saw the travel history in the system and then stamped it and I caught my train for Zurich luckily I got the train I went to Schengen for the 4th time in 2022 and this time my travel plan was to cover 4-5 countries by road-tripping so I also didn't have a plan I just wanted to do a road-trip in Europe and I didn't plan much so I thought let's apply to Switzerland again it's easy I also got lucky that I had already traveled to Switzerland twice so they won't stop me for the 3rd time and luckily I got a 1.5 month visa the travel days were only 30 days but I got a 1.5 month visa so I did a 22 day road-trip but I didn't even set foot in Switzerland this time I went directly from Bombay to Munich I rented a car from
Munich and from there I went to Austria, Slovenia, Italy and a lot of parts of Germany a lot of Southern Germany and
came back so this was the trip where I didn't even set foot in the country from where I got the visa and maybe that's
why they asked me a question on immigration what is your travel plan it was a regular question what's the purpose of
visit when are you returning back to India show the flight ticket of return but then they
what are places you are going to travel because I had a Swiss visa and I landed in Germany I was also returning from Germany and Munich so this was their question so I said that I want to rent a car and travel to these 3-4 countries and added Switzerland in it so after that they just checked that what is the travel history if you have already come 3 times if you have left on time and then they stamped it so maybe because these were all neighboring countries so I didn't face any problem I landed in Germany with a Swiss visa before that I landed in Hungary with an Austrian visa or landed in France with a Swiss visa so these were all neighboring countries so maybe that's why they didn't ask much but imagine if I go to Netherlands or Finland with a Spain visa so they might ask when are you going to Spain show the ticket of that too or where is your return flight from is it from Spain or somewhere else so in that case they might ask this question maybe they don't ask you this [Subtitles Powered by Dubverse.ai] Then you have to tell them, either they can ask for a ticket or you have to tell them that I will go from this country to here and then from here to Spain And this is my plan Or if you have a Eurail Pass, then you can tell them that I am going to do a train journey from all these countries and then I will go to Spain So these were my 4 entry immigration experiences in Schengen But what about the exit, so to be true they don't care where you are exiting from or from which country They just had to make sure that you are exiting from Schengen area within validity And which date you are leaving, that also has to be as per your visa Only once in 2021, when I was at Frankfurt airport to catch my flight to India Then they stopped me from boarding because I didn't have RT-PCR and at that time it was compulsory So at that time I entered Schengen area again and at that time entry immigration happened again At that time I even explained to them that I am entering Schengen just to get my RT-PCR report So they didn't ask any second question and the next day I again took my RT-PCR report and exited Schengen area And then came back after catching my flight to India So this was the only case, otherwise they don't ask anything when you leave the country And this is the only benefit when you have multiple entry visa So this time I got multiple entry visa all the time Imagine if you get stuck somewhere and you have to enter again So it is important to have multiple entry visa And that's why I tell everyone that when you fill the form for Schengen visa Then select multiple entry option only, never do single entry Even if your plan is very detailed and specific, but always tick multiple entry So these were some of my experiences that I thought we should talk about immigration I talked about everything else like cover letter and travel itinerary So I thought we should talk about immigration in this video How was your experience in Schengen area regarding immigration? Tell me in the comment box And if you have any queries regarding immigration or any questions related to Schengen Tell me in the comment box And if you want to make a video on some other topic Just help me out, I can make videos with your suggestions If you have more questions on this topic, let's make this video It will help someone or the other So just let me know what are your questions and what topics should I make videos on And I make videos on the topics that have more queries So see you in the next video, let's see what topic we catch
