Visas needed?
 

My spouse and I are taking a 10 day vacation to Italy in March. We're traveling with British Airways and stopping over for 7 hours in London. We arrive at Heathrow and then need to transfer to Gatwick for the rest of our leg to Italy. Do we need any type of visa to do this landside transfer? We are US citizens, and we are planning on taking the Tube to London Victoria from Heathrow, getting lunch somewhere nearby the station and then taking a train (Gatwick express) to Gatwick from Victoria.

Also, for the 10 day trip to Italy, do we need to apply for a visa there?

Thanks.

Can't speak for Italy as I haven't had the pleasure, but for London, you only need your passport. No Visa required.

You don't need a visa anywhere in Western Europe if you are a US passport holder and your stay is for less than 90 days and its purpose is tourism or business.

Assuming you are US citizen no visas.

In the UK they will ask why you are there - you say "in transit."

They say "in transit to where?" Tell them "Italy via Gatwick." They stamp passport, write "IT" on stamp, you are on your way.

In Italy they won't ask you anything just give you a stamp.

Italy will stamp on exit of the country. UK does not.

You should wind up with 4 stamps total - 2 entries for UK, 1 entry and 1 exit for Italy.

Great news! Thanks for your help.

As others have pointed out that US citizens need no visa for visiting Western Europe as long as the visit is less than 90 days. As a matter of practice, it's a good idea to look into visa requirements in advance as in some cases visa cannot be obtained in a short time. There was a time in the 80's when the US citizens were required to get a visa to France.

The US is the glaring exception to this but most of the time, one does not require even a transit visa if not leaving the airport. Even citizens who need visas to Schengen countries (for example) sometimes do not need transit visas, such as South African citiznes, but others (mostly the poorest of the poor countries out there) do.

I am not sure which part of my post you disagree with.

eh.. I dunno now :) I think it was needing travel visas when one doesn't "enter" the country, ala AMS where one remains in "neutral zone" and does not enter Dutch territory.

In case you don't have the link, here is country-specific information from the US State Department including entry requirements for US citizens.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p.../cis_1765.html

A useful bookmark when considering your travel options. ^