if an American is going to Austria, is it trivial to land in Slovakia and drive/take a train across the border? Yes, travel visas are Schengen-wide, only resid

if an American is going to Austria, is it trivial to land in Slovakia and drive/take a train across the border? Yes, travel visas are Schengen-wide, only residency permits are handled on a per-country basis. There's also no border post to physically stop you crossing. It's more complicated when you stay within the EU but leave the Schengen area. People get bitten by this all the time when they book flights with a stop-over in a country for which they have no implicit right of transit (e.g.: the UK).