-where to stay in France – campsites, hotels, B&B's-
Or... keeping a roof over your head when cycling in France
Camping
This is one area where France is unique. Of course there are campsites of all sizes in every tourist area, but outside those areas most large villages and almost every town will have a 'municipal' campsite which is generally small, grassy, quiet and cheap. Using these you can traverse any area of France for between 3 and 10 Euro a night (pricing is pretty random...) even in out of the way places. It's very hard to find any situation where you are further than 30 kms from a campsite. The snag is that the opening time of many sites is limited to the holidays season of 15th June to 15th September or even less. And these opening times are often a guide only and it is essential to phone ahead to make sure a site is open when it is supposed to be. Ending up at a campsite at 6.00pm at the end of a long day to find that for some reason it is closed and the next one 25 kms away isn't funny. If you are cyclecamping then you MUST buy 'Le Guide Official Camping Caravanning' – no other guide lists all the campsites and in addition this has maps where the position of campsites are clearly marked so you can plan an itinerary. There is also an associated website but the snag is that there are no detailed positional maps, so that unless you know the commune that you plan to visit you can't find a campsite! This is a typically french error which is repeated time after time through many websites detailing gites, hotels etc and which makes many of them practically useless. The guide is heavy, but it's easy to tear out relevant parts and maps...
Gite D'Etape
These are the French 'equivalent' to our Youth Hostel system. Generally they are cheaper than hotels and B&B at 15-30 Euro a night. The snag is that the quality is extremely variable – from little more than a shed with mattresses on boards and a filthy kitchen, to places nearer simple hotels. In all cases you may have to share rooms/dorms though some have double rooms and the like. Their distribution is varied and it's not very easy to put routes together using them exclusively and so they tend to be best as an occasional stop or bolt-hole for a group of drenched cyclecampers... Finding where they are can be 'challenging'...
Hotels and B&B
Rural hotels in France are in a state of crisis. The french state is imposing draconian safety rules on all hotels so that a tiny 6 bedroom hotel in a village had to have fire doors, fire escapes, sprinklers and the like. As the bill for this sort of thing runs into hundreds of thousands of Euro most of these places are folding the day after the 'inspector' calls. We've lost three of our hotels in this way in the last two years. If this continues there will come a stage where these most typical parts of French rural life will disappear. They are rapidly being replaced by B&B's or 'Chambre D'Hotes' which can have up to 5 rooms and escape most of the regulations. As some will provide meals and are even attached to bars the line is increasingly blurred – the difference being that many Chambre D'Hote are in the countryside, which as long as they do evening meals is perfect for cyclists. Unlike campsites these places are open all year round and there are lots even in the most rural areas so putting a route together should be simple – but sadly it's not as we'll see later...
Costs – of course it's possible to spend a fortune in some Chateaux, but most cyclists prefer small, clean and simple and generally it's easy to find double rooms for between 50 and 100 Euro a night. Most places rent per room rather than per person so the economics for someone traveling solo are not quite so attractive...
However finding both Hotels and B&B's and putting together a route is not easy – the tourist offices in much of france are a waste of space for a moving-on cycle tourist and you may well find Google Maps your best bet...
A Small Favour
We hope you've enjoyed reading this short article and will go on to read many more. This website exists both as an information hub for cyclists – (and we offer free advice by email) - but also as a commercial site to sell our cycling holidays. For 27 years we've been the only company in the world offering fully equipped cycle camping holidays and now also offer hotel based holiday and even run our local campsite which is uniquely well geared up for passing cycletourists.
If you like what we do and want us to continue please help by sharing our Facebook page, telling your friends or linking to www.bretonbikes.com on any site you run. Without your support we'd not be here...