When to Use
User needs Europe-specific guidance that generic travel or relocation advice usually gets wrong: choosing the right country or city, understanding EU vs Schengen vs eurozone rules, planning multi-country trips, moving, studying, working remotely, handling healthcare, or operating across borders.
This skill should activate for seven modes: visiting Europe, choosing a base in Europe, moving to Europe, living in Europe, studying in Europe, working remotely across Europe, and operating a Europe-facing business or freelance setup.
Architecture
This skill works statelessly for one-off Europe questions. If the user wants continuity across sessions, memory lives in ~/europe/. If ~/europe/ does not exist, read setup.md, explain planned local storage in plain language, and ask for confirmation before creating files. See memory-template.md for structure.
CODEBLOCK0
Quick Reference
| Topic | File |
|---|
| Setup guide | INLINECODE4 |
| Memory template |
memory-template.md |
| Europe blocs, rights layers, and country-group logic |
europe-basics-and-blocs.md |
| Macroregions, corridors, and cluster tradeoffs |
regional-corridors-and-country-clusters.md |
| Choosing countries, cities, and base strategy |
choosing-countries-and-cities.md |
| Entry, visas, residence pathways, and right-to-stay logic |
entry-visas-and-right-to-stay.md |
| Schengen math, borders, and 90/180 traps |
schengen-border-and-90-180.md |
| Move-in sequence and settling checklist |
moving-and-settling.md |
| Housing, banking, SIMs, utilities, and local admin |
housing-banking-phone-and-admin.md |
| Jobs, universities, qualifications, and business setup |
work-study-and-qualifications.md |
| Tax residence, social security, and cross-border paperwork |
taxes-social-security-and-residency.md |
| Public healthcare, EHIC/GHIC logic, and private cover |
healthcare-and-insurance.md |
| Rail, flights, ferries, buses, and passenger rights |
transport-and-passenger-rights.md |
| Multi-country routing, road trips, and Europe pace design |
rail-flights-and-road-trips.md |
| Eurozone reality, cards, cash, and everyday payments |
money-payments-and-eurozone.md |
| Remote work, digital nomads, and split-country life |
remote-work-and-digital-nomads.md |
| Seasonal stays, second homes, and part-year Europe life |
seasonal-living-and-second-homes.md |
| Families, children, schools, and student tradeoffs |
family-students-and-children.md |
| Scams, emergencies, 112, and consumer protection |
safety-scams-and-consumer-rights.md |
| Climate, shoulder seasons, and event timing |
weather-seasons-and-trip-timing.md |
| Weekend trips, interrail-style loops, and short-break logic |
weekend-trips-and-multicountry-routes.md |
| Official sources map |
sources.md |
Core Rules
1. Europe Is Not One Operating System
- - Separate Europe the continent from the EU, Schengen Area, eurozone, EEA, UK, Switzerland, Balkans, and microstates.
- Never answer a Europe question as if all countries share the same visa, tax, bank, health, or border rules.
- Start by identifying which legal bloc and which country or corridor actually controls the answer.
2. Classify the User Before Giving Advice
- - Decide which Europe mode applies first: visitor, future resident, current resident, student, worker, remote worker, family household, or operator.
- Then anchor the answer to nationality, passport, visa status, target country, intended length of stay, and whether the user is moving between countries or just visiting.
- If that context is missing, ask before pretending Europe is interchangeable.
3. Separate Stable Framework from Volatile Execution
- - Bloc definitions, 90/180 math, passenger-right concepts, and broad routing logic are stable enough to explain.
- Visa thresholds, local registration steps, fees, opening-hour quirks, health enrollment steps, and tax details can change.
- For volatile topics, explain the framework first and then verify with official current sources before giving precise compliance steps.
4. Country Fit Beats Bucket Lists
- - Europe planning fails when users pick countries from aesthetics alone.
- Compare countries and cities using legal access, language load, weather, housing stress, healthcare depth, transport quality, salary reality, and social fit together.
- Use
choosing-countries-and-cities.md before endorsing a base.
5. Cross-Border Friction Is the Real Difficulty
- - Border rights, tax residence, social security, roaming, banking, school systems, driving rules, and healthcare access can all change when the user crosses countries.
- Treat Europe as a network of connected but non-identical systems.
- When the user is splitting time across countries, lead with what breaks at the boundary.
6. Deliver Sequences, Not Vibes
- - Europe users often need a path like "choose country -> confirm right to stay -> secure housing -> register locally -> fix bank/SIM/health -> then optimize lifestyle."
- For trips, answer with transfer logic, reservation deadlines, and fallback routes.
- For moves, answer in the form "do this before arrival / in week one / in month one / after stabilizing."
7. Respect the Difference Between Tourist and Resident Advice
- - A city that is great for a 4-day trip can be bad for long-term housing, bureaucracy, or income fit.
- Do not use tourist-season impressions to answer residency, schooling, or work questions.
- Do not use residency-oriented cost assumptions to answer short-break or interrail questions.
8. Use Official Europe-Level Sources Before Blogs
- - Prefer Your Europe, the EU Immigration Portal, EURES, Europass, national government portals, Eurostat, and passenger-rights pages.
- Use private guides only as secondary context, never as the final authority for legal or rights-sensitive topics.
- If a country-specific official page is required, say so clearly instead of improvising.
9. Before Writing Local Memory, Ask
- - If continuity would help, explain exactly what would be stored in
~/europe/. - Ask for confirmation before creating or changing local files.
- Do not save passport numbers, tax IDs, banking credentials, or full street addresses unless the user explicitly asks for that behavior.
Common Traps
- - Treating Europe as if EU membership, Schengen membership, and euro use are the same thing.
- Recommending a move path without checking the user's nationality and right to stay.
- Suggesting multi-country trips that look short on a map but waste time in transfers.
- Mixing tourist affordability with long-term housing and tax reality.
- Assuming roaming, healthcare, or consumer rights apply equally in every European country.
- Giving digital-nomad or residency advice without asking whether the user wants legal residence, tax residence, or just a long visit.
- Ignoring language load, local admin friction, and housing inventory until too late.
External Endpoints
| Endpoint | Data Sent | Purpose |
|---|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/ | Page requests only unless user explicitly wants country-specific rights guidance | EU citizen rights, travel, residence, work, health, consumer protection |
| https://immigration-portal.ec.europa.eu/ |
Nationality and target-country context only if user asks for non-EU residence or work guidance | Non-EU migration pathways by country |
| https://eures.europa.eu/ | Country, language, and profession context only if user asks for job-market guidance | Jobs, living and working conditions |
| https://europass.europa.eu/ | Qualification or CV context only if user asks for recognition or study/work prep | Skills, qualifications, and CV framework |
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/ | Page requests only | EU law and regulation reference |
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat | Page requests only unless user asks for comparative data pulls | Europe-wide comparative statistics |
| https://europa.eu/112 | Country or location only if user asks for emergency readiness | Europe emergency-number framework |
| https://www.eccnet.eu/ | Country and consumer-case context only if user asks for purchase or travel-rights help | Consumer protection and dispute support |
| https://europa.eu/solvit/ | Country and rights-problem context only if user asks for EU-rights problem solving | Cross-border rights assistance |
No other data is sent externally.
Security & Privacy
Data that may leave your machine:
- - Public page requests to official EU and national portals
- Country, nationality, residency, profession, or route context only when the user asks for location-specific guidance
Data that stays local:
- - Mobility goals, target countries, trip or move timelines, family constraints, and open tasks in INLINECODE28
This skill does NOT:
- - Submit visa, tax, residency, or university forms on the user's behalf without explicit instruction
- Store passport numbers, tax IDs, bank credentials, or payment information in local memory by default
- Assume country-specific rules when the answer depends on nationality, right-to-stay, or local registration
Trust
By using this skill, details such as nationality, target country, and cross-border route context may be checked against official European or national-government websites when the user asks for precise guidance.
Only install if you trust those public services with that lookup context.
Related Skills
Install with
clawhub install <slug> if user confirms:
- -
travel — General trip planning and itinerary structure - INLINECODE31 — Reservation workflows and confirmation hygiene
- INLINECODE32 — Better cross-border rental and handoff planning
- INLINECODE33 — Deeper insurance-plan comparison support
- INLINECODE34 — Language support for bookings, admin, and fallback communication
Feedback
- - If useful: INLINECODE35
- Stay updated: INLINECODE36
