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Traveling around through Europe is about to get even easier and quicker when the Schengen Zone expands on Friday December 21. The down side is you’ll get less stamps in your passport, but the big bonus is there’ll be a lot less waiting at border crossings.

What does it all mean? The Schengen Zone is a group of countries who have all signed the Schengen Agreement, which basically aims to abolish border controls between the countries. That means that across most of Europe now you can cross a border between a country and barely notice it – you won’t need to stop and show your passport or have your car searched, and if you’re not looking carefully at the signs you might miss the border.

But if you’re entering the Schengen area from parts of Europe that don’t belong to the agreement – for example, entering into Estonia from Russia, or entering into France from the United Kingdom, which hasn’t signed on – you might find the border controls even tougher. That’s because they’re now protecting an even greater area and number of countries, and nobody wants to be the guard responsible for missing a case of people trafficking, drug smuggling or illegal import of cigarettes or other goods.