If you could live anywhere in France

[Ohtheplacesyoullgoto]

After 5 years planning, we are in a position to get a visa to move to France. It has been a childhood dream for us both and we are over the moon.

Unfortunately we love pretty much all of France. We have been spending all our spare time on holiday in the country and there are about 30 different departments we could see ourselves living in. We are leaning more towards the west of France in general. I've blacked out areas we have discounted.

Our criteria:

Fairly cheap property- we would like to be mortgage free. This would give us a budget of around 250k euro for a house witn a little bit of land. This is possible everywhere we have visited.

Beautiful scenery- again everywhere we have visited.

We love rural living in the UK at the moment, but need good Internet, not a million miles from an airport, and access to good schools for the future. We both are fluent in French so don't need an English community.

Ideally I'd like to live near a pretty medival village but need to be practical!

So- if you could live anywhere in France- where would you go?

Oh god. I'd have the same problem as you but how exciting to have to choose.

How much of a concern are travel links back home? Will you come back often? Will you except many family visits?

You’ve blacked out our area

I always like being within an hour of the coast, I follow a couple doing up a Chateau in the Vendee and that looks lovely and its a sunny region without the super heat. Day trips to La Rochelle.

I’d live in Josselin

You’ve blacked out my departement- 01 Ain. Because of our proximity to Geneva (20 mins on the bus) it’s massively expensive. But it’s stunning.

If I were to move it would have to be to the coast. In the hills above Toulon or further down in Château-Neuf Grasse for cheaper housing.

How come youve blacked out the pyrenees?
I was going to say the Aude region, the villages around Carcassonne and foothills of the pyrenees. Quillan, Alet les bains, esperaza, puivert.

I think Charente and limousin area is lovely too. I think if you go inland but find an area with swimming lake or river swimming areas and things to do in summer. Maybe Ruffec, Confolens.

What are your work constraints? eg how close do you need to be to an airport and where would you need to go? Having an extra hop on flights adds quite a lot of time if you work remotely but need to get to client site regularly.

Would either of you be aiming to work locally?

You have blocked out most of Aquitaine - is the due to being too far south?

Quillan or Puivert but you've blacked them out so 🤷🏽‍♀️🤣

Thank you all! We have blocked out a lot of the South West as we flew to Carcassonne, and then spent a month travelling around the blacked out areas and we found it a bit too mountainous and not so green. I'd really like rolling fields and forests and lakes. If there are areas like this in the blacked out area please let me know as we didn't go everywhere!

My dream would be a village on lake Geneva @Cazzovuoi but we would need a mortgage!

Work is fully remote so no need to travel to the UK but we have elderly parents who we'd like to be able to visit/have them visit fairly easily.

Thank you all so far!

St. Malo💗

I'm in the South Touraine between Tours and Poitiers. Twenty minutes from the TGV to Paris, which is about 1.5 hours away.

Great climate, cheap housing- you'd get a lot for your budget. Friendly people and not too many Brits, although I've made good friends of many nationalities. The area comes to life in summer with tourists and Parisian second home owners. Winters are very quiet and this has been the wettest, most miserable one so far!

I moved here on a whim five years ago escaping Brexit and a job I hated. I travelled around Europe in a van for six months and this area stayed with me for some reason.

No regrets, although I wish I'd looked into inheritance rules and tax implications first.

Aix En Provence

I live in France, however if I could start again I would not live where I currently live on the Mediterranean coast.

The Tarn is as you describe, I know someone who lives in Laguepie St Martin,
there's a "plage" for kids on the river, train to Toulouse for the airport,
rolling hills & remarkably unspoiled cheap property.
a big dynamic international community. but you need to like being in the boonies.

If you want the coast I'd probably move to La Vendée, cheaper than the South, & not as molten hot.

Vendée or Poitou-Charente area
Nice weather, not too hot, not far from the coast, not too pricey.

How’s that view for you? It’s not Lake Geneva but further south. The lake is Serre Ponçon. We love it here.

How about the Jura region? Lots of lakes and villages, forests can get to Geneva quite easily, lots of cross country skiing in winter.

I love Brittany, so that gets my vote!

Haute Vienne ticks a lot of your boxes, green rolling hills, lakes, airport (Limoges), cheapish rural property, medieval villages Bellac for instance is picture postcard pretty.

Close to the sea. I wouldn’t want to be too far inland - I love the water.

You've blacked out where I live but based on your posts I think you'd like the Tarn region! We go camping just outside of Millau next to the Gorges du Tarn and it's wonderful. Nature is beautiful, full of forests and lots of green. It's a pretty adventurous area, the people are nice, the food is good. We're due to go back there in a few weeks, can't wait.

Edited to add: Weather-wise it's a lot cooler than where I am near the Spanish border, so we like to escape the heat there. It snowed a fair bit there this winter though.

The Tarn region is near the top of our list but my only worry is flights- it looks like no direct flights into the area, unless you fly to Toulouse and drive a few hours?

We drove last time but I can't imagine family would want to drive that far south! I think I need a shortlist and then go out for a month or two and spend a few weeks in our shortlisted areas.

Be very very very very very careful of basing your choice mainly on ease of access to one of the smaller regional airports and/or relying on the LoCos to continue to provide a direct service from your regional airport in France to the regional of your choice in the UK.

Quite a few folks bought property here in the back of beyond at the start of the LoCO boom in the 90’s when Ryanair/Easyjet seemed to serve every cow field with a runway. Then, Voila, the market changed, Ryanair etc dropped routes and some people were faced with some awkward to impossible journeys, especially the weekenders.

The advantage of being within striking distance of larger airports at places like Lyon, Bordeaux or Toulouse is they have enough market share to hang onto direct services to the UK, and even if those dry up (as happened in Covid) there are plenty of options to routes to the UK via Paris.

BTW, I’m another one surprised you’ve blacked out the Pyrenees adjacent department….we’re not that backwards down here.

You've blacked out my region so I can't offer you specific advice but...

Having loved in a village and now a city you will find your social and leisure opportunities very limited in a village or small town and you'll be stuck with neighbours who've lived there literally for generations. You'll like some but not others and you'll need to rub along with all of them.

How far is the nearest big shops, how often is the market, is there mains gas and is your future house on the municipal drains or does it have a septic tank?

I'd be certain to check on doctolib (you might need to make an account) where the nearest GP is, where's the nearest hospital, where's the nearest prefecture because you'll need all those things!

Tarn et Garonne (82).

Beautiful.

Less than an hour to Toulouse.

Ideally I'd like to live near a pretty mediaeval village but need to be practical!

Have a look at Lauzerte.

Feel free to PM if you need estate agent contacts - I am absolutely not an estate agent! -but we just moved from near there so have sold a house recently

Thank you! Lauzerte is exactly the kind of place we are looking for. We've not visited but it looks similar to much more expensive areas!

More than happy to chat over message if you have any specific questions.

Can't help much about schools though as our children are in their 30s now - although we had friends there with children ranging from 4 - 18 and they all seemed fine.