I’m Nick, a new user here from the UK. My partner and I are thinking/dreaming about moving to France, potentially buying a house while still living in the UK for a while, and either moving to France later and running a small business (events or gites potentially), or even later when we retire.
I’ve been reading through some of the excellent information on this forum, which has been really helpful, albeit slightly daunting in terms of all the hoops that you need to jump through. We are obviously right at the start of this journey, and were thinking of coming to France and hiring a motorhome to do a bit of travelling around to find the sort of location we’re looking for - we’re thinking the Dordogne area currently but open to suggestions.
If anyone could recommend somewhere to hire a motorhome or something similar, that would be great. I’m assuming it will be cheaper to do this in France rather than hiring one in the UK?
If you are looking at Dordogne, there’s a motorhome place called Passion Campingcar within walking distance of Bergerac airport. I don’t know for a fact they rent them out, but I imagine they do - they have zillions of them anyway.
Oooh that rings a bell. They have people’s motorhomes and rent them out when the owners aren’t using them, I think. I’m fairly sure some friends of mine used them, if it wasn’t there it could have been a place on the outskirts of Bordeaux.
I really don’t want to worry you but do you and your partner both have only British passports? Or do either of you also have a passport from an EU Member State? Just thinking that if you’ve only got the British passport then you’ll need to consider the visa requirements, and earning enough to meet the threshold may be challenging whilst you’re just starting up. There’s a few on here who run gîtes and may be able to advise on the feasibility of earning enough to not risk being deported.
There was a thing on the news here recently about a British woman in the Creuse who fell foul of the minimum earnings … although she wasn’t running a gite if I remember correctly.
PS - the Dordogne is a lovely part of the country to live. You chose well
Hi Gareth, and thanks, I’ve been lurking here for a little while and have read some of the threads (including that horror story thread ) which have definitely brought me back down to earth on the small business side of things. I kind of have a vague idea of what the requirements are in terms of meeting the minimum wage, etc thanks to this forum, and I understand it’s not as easy to run a gite business as maybe it used to be.
We’re still in the very early stages of this whole thing, I still have a house to sell in the UK and then we’ll continue to live and work in the UK, which will probably for years after potentially buying a house in France as the 18 years old will need to fly the nest first lol, and I still have around 10 years before retirement.
All we know is that we want to move to France, and if we have a house there we could use it for holidays and then maybe rent it out in some way when we’re not there. It would only be much later that we would potentially move to France, so I’m here to soak up as much information as possible in the meantime
I was reading this week that Bergerac airport is one being scrapped by Ryanair this year if you are thinking of setting up nearby and relying on it for travel and clients. Best to be near a bigger airport these days.
They say that every so often, and it was shut most of the winter for repairs to the runway which caused lots of speculation.
Ryanair is only one of the companies operating at Bergerac airport, there’s also British Airways, Jet 2, and Transavia. Bordeaux is an hour and a half away, Toulouse about two and a half so I think people do use Bergerac, they did when you had only flights to Paris (sometimes via Périgueux, idiotic).
I campaigned to get international flights 25 years ago, first we had Buzz and then Flybe and Germanwings, all now defunct airlines.
Thanks Shiba and vero, I had seen something online about RyanAir no longer flying to Bergerac and will certainly factor these kind of things into our decision making process
In the case of Bergerac I’d think that started as a negotiating position by Ryanair to get a better deal or continue with one they may have. Ryanair do play hard ball though I am sure the customer base of Bergerac is more valuable to them than many airports in France they’ve walked away from.
I’d advise against any French small regional airport carrying much weight in where to live decisions. There’s probably too many of them, the situation’s rather volatile and some are definitely economically vulnerable.
Even when we lived handily for Brest airport, they used to have regular flights to the UK, mostly Luton or B’ham but those stopped finally in 2017 as Ryanair fell out with the city owners over charges. Now they have even cut internal routes with French airlines as well so you can never tell how long an airline is going to use one. The Bergerac info came up this week online so its not referring to previous reports of closure.
France has banned all internal flights lasting under an hour (I think) so an airport with only one or two destinations will suffer. There are currently 13 regular routes at Bergerac, not that that’s a guarantee of course, as some are also very seasonal. They do charter flights as well.
We have three Transavia flights a day from here to Orly which are mostly commuter flights as first one goes very early and its about an hour and five minutes with a wind behind you.
We live in Dordogne; and our daughter and husband (who are approaching retirement, like you) have just stayed with us for a visit - they have travelled by camper van.
I would suggest a few basic things to bear in mind;
Stop ‘thinking/dreaming’ about it - you will get bogged down reading all sorts of detail which may in the event be of no use to you. You need to clear your head; and embark on the first actual step.
My daughter commented that “The trouble with a camper van is it’s a bit like watching a video on YT - you are not connected to reality, just watching the scenery go by - and you end up every evening on a campsite with a bunch of foreigners and a café serving beefburgers and chips”. I understand what she means.
I would certainly endorse Dordogne as, at least, your start-point geographically. Don’t believe all of the stuff you may read - come and experience it for yourselves
Step 1: Rent a holiday home or three in different locations - hire a car, not a camper van (very cheap here).
Use these rentals as your base to a] visit the locality in depth; b] learn first-hand what holiday rentals (AKA ‘gites’, if you must) are all about; and c] build up a picture of what properties are available; and at what price - even if only by looking in the agent’s windows (immobilier).
Only you know (or will find out) what attracts you. Compared to the ridiculous UK property market, prices here will appear very cheap- but there are many other Départements that are even cheaper (and others much higher than Dordogne).
Finally - once you have a more specific plan, establish contact with one of a number of locally based ‘Anglophone Guides’. They know the ropes; and for a small fee can provide practical help, according to what you require. [I have personal excellent experience, for example, of Sasha who operates as ‘Living French’ - website]
Many thanks for the useful advice, very much appreciated!
We will certainly look into renting a house instead of the motorhome, we did like the idea of France Passion and were planning on using that as part of our travels, but we will weigh up the pros and cons of each.
Thanks also for the Anglophone Guide links, we will definitely use that service.
) which have definitely brought me back down to earth on the small business side of things. I kind of have a vague idea of what the requirements are in terms of meeting the minimum wage, etc thanks to this forum, and I understand it’s not as easy to run a gite business as maybe it used to be.