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?

Every time we think about other areas of France we realise we chose well.

South Vendée only about 40 minutes from La Rochelle and can be in Nantes in just over an hour. TGV from Niort only takes 2 hours to Paris. We have the coast line, a beautiful forest with a lake and decent schools.

Two things to consider, I is the lack of Dr's and dentists, we now go to La Rochelle as there are no longer any available nearer.

The other is your remote work. If you work for a UK company it gets very complicated in terms of tax and social charges.

Thank you, this is another area on the shortlist. In terms of taxes, this is actually my profession so hopefully I've got that covered- but things like doctors and dentists are really important to consider!
We've been to La Rochelle and thought it was really nice - we will definitely add South Vendee to the next trip.

Have you blacked out Calvados? I’d love to live there! In the Bayeaux area by the beaches.

I would probably choose somewhere rural near Bordeaux/Bergerac out of all of them. Or the Loire valley. Maybe Saumur.

Languedoc Roussillon. It's just as beautiful as Provence, with cheaper housing.
When we lived there (between Narbonne and Carcassonne)were an hour from the coast, and half an hour from the Montagne Noire. On a clear day we had views of the snow capped Pyrenees.
Doctor, dentist in the next village and hospital in the nearest town.

@Frenchfancy can I ask where (roughly) you are please? I've considered moving to la faute area for a while after holidaying there for over 30 years. I recommended vendee too, it can be quite seasonal nearer the cost though so consider that. La Rochelle is a beautiful city!

And an airport at Carcassonne.

As someone suggested upthread, Doctolib is worth having a look at.

I/we had no problems finding a doctor in the region and you can book appointments online and easily find GPs specialising in certain areas. Dentists however seem to be as rare as hen's teeth.

We were very lucky to be in good health but we knew several people who had serious health conditions and their treatment was fast and efficient. You need to be registered with the French health system - I'm not sure how easy it is to get a carte vitale these days - but most people will take out an additional "mutuelle" which is a sort of top-up insurance to cover any shortfall between the medical costs covered by the state and additional costs.

We didn't have an additional mutuelle, but visits to the doctor were about 27 euros and my repeat prescription (for 2 medications) would cost me about 15 euros every 6 months.

@tumblebumbleweed near Fontenay le comte.

It's inland so not so touristy. La Faute can indeed be rather dead in the winter. The off season population is around 2000 whereas in summer it is over 50k.

Brittany! Because it is clearly the best region it used to be popular with Brits until the Dinard airport closed, so now I think it's a bit more french on the north coast. So beautiful. Nantes airport isn't far. And there are multiple ferry options. The beach at St Lunaire is gorgeous. So many forests. Just everything.

Hello OP — I’m very late to this party! I live in a village in the north east and was wondering if you’d made a decision and whether you have actually moved?!