How Much of France Is Too Much?
I remember that first time I truly visited and explored France. It was 2011, and I had enough time off from work to adequately explore France and with “sufficient” funds for a two-week period. Prior to 2011, the only time I visited France was in Paris with my then girlfriend and now wife, Erin. With my fervor, I created an ambitious itinerary: Paris, Rouen (to pay tribute to Joan of Arc), Bayeux (to see the Bayeux tapestry), Normandy (to see various World War II sites and museums), Mont-St-Michel (to see the 10th century, UNESCO-designated monastery), LeMans (to see the 24 Hours of LeMans endurance race), Tours, Carcassonne (a Medieval fortified city), Aix-en-Provence and Dijon (yes, the mustard is that good).
While planning for this trip, I didn’t factor the distances associated with our itinerary — in aggregate or between cities/regions. In total, the aforementioned locations amounted to 1,600 miles (2,500+ km) traveled by car while some of the city-to-city or region-to-region distances took 3-5 hours by car. Looking back on my first “true” foray to France, I came away with several lessons learned that I still employ today when planning future travels:
Focus on a Region or Two: I know it can be tempting, especially for first time travelers, to want to explore as much of a country as possible. During our 2011 France trip, we incurred considerable amount of “wasted” time. By that I mean, over the course of two weeks, a good 1-2 days was spent just traveling from one location to another by car, including the final full day of our trip which was spent traveling from Aix-en-Provence to Paris (some 500 miles) in order to make our flight back to the U.S. This “wasted” period could have been better spent exploring, for example, a new restaurant, a hidden small town or village or visiting several of a region’s weekly antique or outdoor food markets. Note: France does have a very efficient train system, including high-speed trains. Travel to far away large cities such as from Paris to Bordeaux can be done in 3 hours or less.
Plan and Work Your Way Back to Your Departure Airport: Paris was our arrival and departure airport for our 2011 France trip. Without the proper foresight, we ended up 500 miles away in Aix-en-Provence with less than 24 hours before our departure from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. What we quickly realized after the fact was that we continued to travel further away from our departure airport rather than planning a trip with an itinerary that should have brought us progressively closer or in the direction towards our departure airport over the course of our trip.
Factor In Hidden Costs; Traveling by car has advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage is flexibility. You can explore the “nooks and crannies” of a region without being beholden to a train schedule, Further, if you arrive at a destination and do not find it to our liking — a restaurant, a museum, and outdoor food market — you can simply drive off for another destination. With that being said, one of its disadvantages can be the amount of tolls (péages in French) incurred. While France has a very good highway network, the cost to travel them by car can be quite expensive. In our case, visiting too many cities in far away regions while failing to develop an itinerary that did not progressively lead us back in the direction towards our destination airport resulted in us paying in excess of $300 in tolls during our two week trip, including $75 for our last full day.
Traveling ought not be an overwhelming experience. It doesn’t need to be. If you’d like help designing an itinerary that avoids these mistakes, take a look at how France Unseen approaches travel planning by visiting our Services page.